“Rural Life” depicts the vast range of communities in the United States.
Tammy Mercure is fascinated by America’s rural towns and landscapes. A photographer and book designer, she’s just produced an old-fashioned photography zine that provides a visually stunning look into the country’s least urbanized communities.
Based in Tennessee, Mercure is also a co-editor for The American Guide, a photography site inspired by the WPA’s Federal Writers Project known as “The American Guide Series.”
Unlike the depression-era concept, today’s American Guide is less interested in government propaganda and more on the country’s full story; its “amber waves of grain and its strip malls, its apple pies and its oil rigs,” as they explain on their website.
Designed by Mercure and curated by fellow American Guide contributor Brett Klein, AG now has its first venture into the print world, a zine called “Rural Life,” which showcases the work of 18 photographers.
From Roger May’s lush look at Appalachia to Michael Cevoli’s intimate portrayal of the New England coast, “Rural Life” depicts the vast range of communities in the United States.
In the zine’s introduction, Klein writes that “life in rural America is not that simple.” But he also hopes the images simply show a kind of life that, no matter where each reader lives, is “not entirely unlike their own.”
“Rural America,” $15