Photography and the Mom Highway in Albuquerque | Route 66 Centennial

Dorothea Lange, A New Start, Bosque Farms Project [South of Albuquerque, near Isleta Pueblo], December 1935, black and white movie adverse. U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs. LC-USF34-001642-E

Before Route 66 was a neon playground, it was a lifeline for farmers escaping the Dust Bowl all through the southern Great Plains. Long earlier than they have been nationally-acclaimed photographers, Dorothea Lange, John Collier Jr. and Russell Lee have been recruited by the federal authorities to doc rural life through the Great Depression. Without realizing it, these fashionable images would develop into iconic photos of the early Twentieth-century American West and New Mexico, influencing American images onwards.

John Collier Jr. Albuquerque, NM [Downtown], c. 1944, black and white adverse. U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs, Library of Congress. LC-USW3-018801-C

After World War II, the leisurely American highway journey was born. Families packed into convertibles to “go West,” sending picture postcards again residence to indicate off these desert locations.

Portrait of Lee Marmon, circa 1990. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections, University of New Mexico.

Right right here in New Mexico, a younger boy from Laguna Pueblo named Leland “Lee” Marmon heard an automobile accident outside his front door. Brownie digicam in tow, Marmon went to seize the scene. This shot launched Marmon’s journey as a photograph documentarian, particularly of the individuals and existence in his native Laguna. His body of work continues to tell students of Twentieth-century life and reminiscence in Laguna Pueblo within the wake of autotourism.

Lee Marmon, White Man’s Moccasins [Old Man Jeff], 1954, gelatin silver print, Albuquerque Museum, present of Cate Stetson, PC2021.72.28.

By the early Seventies, Route 66 was slowly sinking right into a decline after a brand new interstate system was established in 1956. What have been as soon as thought-about the mundane and typically amusing sights alongside the American roadside have been coming into focus for architectural critics like Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown and John Margolies. Seeing the onset of a homogenized American roadside, Margolies urgently took to the highway. Of over 11,000 photographs taken from the Seventies to 2000s, Albuquerque’s Route 66 was a recurring character in all of its flux. Margolies remarked on his work, “I didn’t want to be ahead of my time. I want to be in sync with it.”

John Margolies, Red Ball Cafe, 4th Street, Albuquerque, NM, 35mm colour {photograph}, c. 1979. John Margolies Roadside America {photograph} archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Today, the story of Albuquerque’s 18-mile stretch of Route 66 is being reframed by the individuals who stay it. Two of Albuquerque’s rising stars on the scene pull from the strategies of Norteño photographer Miguel Gandert’s Nineteen Eighties lowrider portraits and Lee Marmon’s indigenous lens: Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli and Jessica Roybal. Both photographers work throughout the metropolis’s wealthy lowrider subculture within the Barelas and Downtown neighborhoods.

Jessica “Jesree” Roybal. A black-and-white picture of a 1964 Chevy Impala set in opposition to the backdrop of a preferred mural by Larry Bob Phillips in Albuquerque that includes massive, daring graphics and icons consultant of southwestern surroundings. Photo courtesy of Jessica Roybal and Authentically Albuquerque.

Paolinelli’s images are often paired with a reputation and story, as instructed by his topic, whereby the storyteller’s autonomy is prioritized. The freeway will not be handled as a relic of the previous. Instead, these artists are grounded by their communities, holding the actual names and tales of the individuals who make Central Avenue distinctive – stewarding their reminiscence for the following era of Route 66 cruisers. In Spring 2026, the City of Albuquerque Arts & Culture Department platformed lowrider tradition in two Route 66 exhibitions free to the general public. Paolinelli and Roybal are joined by photojournalist Gabriela Campos within the West Central Route 66 Visitor Center’s inaugural exhibition, “Centennial Roots,” on view by October 2026. If you end up on the Albuquerque Convention Center, stroll over to Civic Plaza’s open-air artwork gallery. The exhibition, titled “Sunday on Central Avenue,” showcases Route 66 images by Paolinelli, Roybal and Campos alongside poetry by Damien Flores and Levi Romero, mixing visible storytelling with the written phrase.

Want to see extra of Albuquerque’s Route 66 by the lens of time?

“The Other Route 66” options fascinating images and archival objects from the route that doc town’s altering panorama and tradition over time. The exhibit is on view on the Albuquerque Museum by January 3, 2027.