Photographer Mark Nelson guides us on a road trip through the US

35 North Contemporary Fine Art, North Road, Brighton, Saturday, September 12, to Saturday, October 10

“I ALWAYS loved the idea of going on a trip across America like they do in the movies – going back to John Wayne’s characters going out West to find new freedom and life.”

First Light Gallery founder Mark Nelson’s first solo Brighton show sees him travel from New York to San Francisco over the course of 25 years, taking in a range of Americana images, from the motels and gas stations along the road, to iconic images of the cities he travels through.

Each image is accompanied by a story from the road, giving the personal story behind each shot, and a little bit more information about what inspired it.

“Every picture had a narrative to go with it,” says Nelson. “It’s not just about what you see, but it has a resonance behind it. Some stories are very personal, or quite painful because of the people who have died along the way.”

Two of the most heart-rending images are of one of New York’s much-missed Twin Towers, the last being taken only days before the World Trade Centre was destroyed in a terrorist attack.

Nelson has since gone up the Freedom Tower which took its place.

“It was very cathartic,” he says. “I had been up the World Trade Centre and seen the view of the Empire State Building. It should not be forgotten.”

The foundations of the original towers have been left marked out on the plaza, with the names of more than 3,000 people who died in the attack etched in steel around them.

“That resilience is the American way,” says Nelson. “It’s an example of what road movies are all about – going out to find a new life, forever bettering yourself. That strength, courage and resilience is personified in their reaction and what they have done since.”

The exhibition does feature a street scene taken from the top of the new tower, but Nelson avoided taking pictures of the memorial believing it is a sacred space for people: “it should have some reverence”.

Nelson’s exhibition begins around the time his love affair with the US truly began in 1989 when the former photographic printer turned Brighton gallery owner took his portfolio to a San Francisco photographic convention.

His work was seen by New Jersey-based photographers’ agent and now close friend Marty Boghosian, who hooked Nelson up with the burgeoning fine arts photography library Photonica, which went on to become Monsoon.

As well as supplying the library with mostly landscape black and white images taken all over Europe – including Tuscany and Paris - Nelson began taking photographs across America following in his similar style, staying with Boghosian to get shots of neighbouring New York City.

“There was a French photographer Eugene Atget who kicked off my style,” says Nelson.

“They weren’t abstract images, but there was something about them which was old, which had a romance or narrative to them. There was no-one in the pictures – which suggested something was going to happen. I have used that style ever since.”

Indeed images of open roads, shadowy figures in New York’s Grand Central Station, or Americana motels and street scenes, such as From A Motel Window New Jersey 2002, look like they could come from a film noir or an establishing shot from a Coen Brothers or David Lynch movie.

The majority of the images in the exhibition are in black and white, in the style of another major influence Walker Evans, who captured images of the US in the 1930s in the middle of the Great Depression.

When Nelson does use colour it adds a whole other dimension, be it in his more abstract recent images taken along the road from Danbury Connecticut, or his 2013 crowd scene of Grand Central Station.

A composite picture it captures commuters in the busy concourse, all snapped at different times by hand, as he feared security would not let him use a tripod.

“Hand held time lapses are very difficult but with patience and a myriad of carefully locked off shots steadied by a marble column from somewhere up the stairs you may capture ideal elements much like a painter with his initial sketches,” says Nelson in the book accompanying the exhibition.

“This is a montage of what happened over a one hour period. It happened but not all at once, so it is an illusion of what could have been, but never was.”

He says it is important for photographers not to get locked into the past and obsessed with film.

“Photographers have to embrace the new world rather than moan about digital,” he says. “I have a 35 year archive of work that can’t be replicated, a record of something that has now gone.”

The road plays a big part in the show too, with images of vintage gas pumps and rusted cars spotted alongside the trail, alongside shots of the road itself – in particular a composite image taken while riding a bike in Cape Cod earlier this year.

“I hadn’t ridden for 25 years,” says Nelson. “I saw the landscape in bits, so I took bits of the signage and the road as it got closer and closer to get that movement.”

There are also iconic images of America, including Monument Valley – the section the Native Americans allow to be photographed – and the Grand Canyon, which Nelson and his travelling partner Steve Parry nearly missed after driving in circles for a while.

Nelson hopes it will be the first of many collaborations with 35 North Gallery, which opened last year.

In the future Sharon Whiting, who runs the gallery with her husband John, hope to feature some of the panoramic shots Nelson took for a British Airways contract, which were exhibited in First Class cabins for five years.

“Our aim is to feature local artists who interest us,” she says. “There is a never-ending fund of artistic talent in Brighton to keep the gallery alive and fresh.”

Nelson will be on hand during the exhibition days to discuss his work and provide help and advice to young photographers.

“I want to pay it forward,” he says. “I had a lot of help and support from people along my career path, so I would be happy to give them the benefit of my experience.”

Open Wed to Sun, 11am to 5.30pm, free. Visit www.35northgallery.com

Stories from the exhibition

Mojave 2001

“Like a lot of other things in the States road signage is big. I love the big arrows leading to where? I love the art of Paul Klee, the German Bauhaus artist, who in the early 1900s used arrows in his works – conceptual arrows leading to nowhere, or perhaps to somewhere in your mind.”

New York New York Las Vegas 2001

“Las Vegas early morning”. I even liked the sound of those words. A little way up from the MGM Hotel is New York, New York. It’s all empty at first light, some early traffic, but this is a city that is very late in going to bed and so is deserted in the early dawn. This is my playground for an hour.”

The Wollman Rink Central Park 1997

“It has finished snowing, the skaters are on the rink in Central Park and like little Lowry stick men and women, the falling, gliding, balancing dance of skaters offers a chance to capture an image much like a painting. It’s easy to see but difficult for a photographer to capture. I wanted a scene where most shapes are good and a foreground a painter would choose. It was a case of shooting a lot of 35mm neopan black and white film and then back home studying all of the shots to see if anything was of use... I was only happy with one.”

Brooklyn Bridge In Snow 1997

“There is a sadness to this image. It is grey and unforgiving. The World Trade Centre is shrouded in mist, the sky is milky denying sunshine and light, snowy footprints from the past fade into the slush and disappear from memory.”

Big Sky, Route 66 2001

“The road movie, romantic, like a love for something representing a personal freedom, drives you onward to the optimism of a better future out West. The broken car, rusted, spitting gas and bumping through the desert plains of Utah, carries you into the mountain shadow until the Big Sky dims her light. All is dark, the moon and stars rise behind the mountains and tomorrow hangs in the wings.”