Three photographers and one mother road. The result of this combination is “Route 66 Sightings,” a photography book with built-in street cred.
Roadside shutterbugs Jerry McClanahan, Jim Ross and Shellee Graham will be present Saturday afternoon at Full Circle Bookstore for a signing of the coffee-table book they call “beautiful.” And from the looks of the sample pictures at right, spanning 30 years of snaps, who could argue?
Ross said the ambitious project stemmed from a series of other Route 66-related undertakings. Not counting his childhood love of the TV series “Route 66,” Ross’ path first intersected with the highway in 1992, when he wrote “Oklahoma Route 66: The Cruisers Companion.” Then followed “Here It Is! The Route 66 Map Series,” written with McClanahan, and 2001’s “Oklahoma Route 66.” The two also collaborated on a 1988 documentary, “Bones of the Old Road.”
In 2006, Ross and Graham launched the website route66photographs.com, which led to them partnering again in 2009 for a color postcard book titled “Roadside USA,” which led to this book, “our most ambitious project to date.”
“Wherever the path leads” from here, Ross said in a statement, “it is safe to say that I will never wander far from the two-lane highways of yesteryear.”
