National Character is a geographically broad rendering of social landscapes across the American Realm.
These photographs inhabit the post-eclectic age, a current epoch bridging the gap between the culturally rich post-industrial era and the encroachingly antiseptic technological age.
A certain melancholia imbues these photographs. The tired faces and stained façades I am drawn to are on the verge of irrelevance in an increasingly tech-driven world—yet there is hope. The things built before modernity are cathected with the charm of human effort and demand to be seen. Yet the distractions of today often blind us to the truth written on their surfaces.
The commonplace has become all too common, a veritable exercise in predictability: strip malls, franchised restaurants, banks, and a gas station on every corner of a four-way intersection. It would be false to say that I do not rely on these conveniences, but I am still trying to understand why I do not photograph them.
In searching for examples of our national identity, I often leave major byways and instead travel intimate two-lane roads in search of that spiritual topography so indicative of post-eclectic American places.
About John Sanderson
John Sanderson is a photographer of the American Realm’s post-eclectic age. His work reconciles themes of impermanence and expansion within the contemporary landscape. These views reveal a latent spiritual topography unique to North America’s rapidly restructured physical and social environments.
Sanderson traces his artistic influences to Midtown Manhattan, New York City, where he was raised and continues to maintain a studio. The city’s street grid, with its long avenues and cross streets, fostered an early appreciation for architectural design. His interest in photographing people is an extension of having been raised in a diverse, middle-class urban environment with few cultural barriers. These dual influences are reflected in each photograph.
Over the past twenty years, Sanderson has developed multiple projects, each deconstructing a specific cross-section of the American Realm. His projects explore themes such as transportation, leisure, residence, industry, and decay. The photographs are made using multiple large-format film cameras, as well as smaller digital cameras when needed. Sanderson is also a master printer and regards the print as the conclusion of the photographic process.
Sanderson’s photographs have been featured in a variety of publications, including PDN Magazine, Slate Magazine, BBC News, The Wall Street Journal, Lenscratch, and NBC News. Fallen Flags and Railroad Landscapes have both been the subject of several solo and group exhibitions.
In 2017, he published National Character, a monthly monograph magazine, through Subjectively, Objective. His work is held in a number of private and public collections, including the Figge Art Museum, MTA Metro-North Railroad, the New York Transit Museum, the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, and the special collections libraries of the International Center of Photography, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and UC Berkeley.
Zatara Press published his Carbon County project in 2019 and The Grove in 2025. In 2022, the Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project commissioned Sanderson to photograph the Commonwealth of Kentucky, expanding his personal journey through what he has come to call the American Realm. [Official Website]
