On a sunny October day in Woolwich, Maine, photographer Sarah Silbiger was yelling directions from the back of her van to her partner, Jason Bernert.
Forward. Looking backwards. forward. Looking backwards.
The 20-foot-tall Winnebago EKKO moves awkwardly, changing direction every few seconds as Barnato carefully maneuvers it into position. It’s fall foliage season in New England, and the parking lot of a small restaurant is filled with tourists looking for a bite to eat. The hustle and bustle makes it even more difficult to reposition.
In the end, after asking Bernert to “realign the van a million times,” she got what she was looking for, Silbiger said. On the roof of the Taste of Maine restaurant, about 55 miles up the coast from Portland, a 12-foot-tall, 700-pound inflatable lobster fits snugly outside the back window of a van.
“What’s more Americana than something oversized?” Silbiger said.
That’s a difficult question.
This sentiment will resonate with anyone who has driven significant distances across the United States. The American landscape is dotted with miles and miles of stunning nature, maximum kitsch, and everything in between.
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Silbiger captures this joyful juxtaposition of strangeness and beauty in a series of photographs titled “Wanderer’s Window,” created while traveling and living in a camper during a year-long sabbatical from November 2023 to November 2024.
Until then, Silbiger had worked as a freelance photojournalist in Washington, D.C., primarily documenting the inside of the Capitol and the White House.
After covering politics every day for about seven years, the repeated photos began to wear her down.
“I really wanted to see this country and see the places we always talk about,” Silbiger said.
Mr. Silbiger’s creative burnout and desire to explore the United States coincided with Mr. Bernert being bought out of his journalism job in the District in the fall of 2023. There was nothing connecting the couple to the city anymore, so they took out the map and started planning a route.
“We literally grabbed a map, we grabbed a Sharpie, and we were like, ‘Okay, okay,'” Silbiger said. “If you start with an East Coast winter, how can you follow mild weather year-round?”
As the couple headed west, Silbiger began to break out of a creative rut. “Every mile of the road was a new visual for me. I mean, it was just like a huge creative adrenaline shot to my heart,” she said.
One of the early destinations was the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California’s Alabama Hills, where Silbiger took the photographs that sparked his creative vision for the series.
After arriving at the campsite long after dark, the couple crawled into bed and wondered what and who they were surrounded by.
“We sunk into bed, and when I woke up the next morning, this was the view from my bedroom,” Silbiger exclaims, showing a photo of jagged mountain peaks capped by low-hanging clouds and gently washed by the morning sun. The entire scene was framed by the van’s oddly thin rectangular windows.
“Okay, now we have our first photo,” Silbiger said. “How do I make the rest?”
Over the next year, Silbiger and his partner zigzagged through 35 states, chasing mild climates, expansive landscapes, and anything else that intrigued them. All the while, she was using the van as a giant camera.
“With digital photography, sometimes I feel like it’s too easy, so it’s really, really satisfying to be able to get a decent photo,” Silbiger explained. “But a 25-foot RV is not an easy camera to use to make exposures.”
Silbiger’s portfolio is a reflexive mix of classic American motifs like saguaro cacti and herds of bison with quirky roadside attractions like the inflatable Maine lobster. The unexpected nature of the photographs mimics discovering things on the open road.
Despite driving about 25,000 miles, Silbiger is hungry to get back on the asphalt and continue taking photos.
“There’s always something great around the corner,” she said. “That’s the beauty of road trips…what’s in store for the next road?”
