Thomas Humery is a French-German artist currently living and working in Paris. Around eight years ago Humery turned his lens toward America, beginning his longterm project, “The Great American Vernacular Encyclopedia.” The ongoing body of work takes the form of an online visual encyclopedia, accessible through the homepage on his website.

Rambling across the United States with his 4×5 camera, Humery focuses on architecture, objects, local flora, details, documents, and people, endeavoring to reveal “the ordinary as a poetic and transcendent experience.” As he travels, he catalogs his subjective portraits of the places he visits. The finished product will consist of 45 pictures from each state crossed, followed by a collectible book published with Galerie F16 in Paris. After some years of production, “The Sleeper”, made in Utah between 2017 and 2020, will be the first book from the collection to be published.

See a selection of Humery’s images from various states below!