MacFadden & Thorpe

Real Rural Website

Client: Lisa M. Hamilton / Roots of Change / The Bill Lane Center for the American West

In this project, Lisa M.Hamilton travelled away from California's densely populated cities into the areas of country that make up the majority of the golden state. She photographed and interviewed people she met along the way in an effort to form an truthful portrait of the state's rural population. Twenty of these stories are presented on the site, with people like Mauricio Espinoza, a farm foreman in Riverside Country; Marcia Sablan a doctor in Fresno County; and Kieth & Ileah Roquemore, a bull rider and barrel racer respectively, from Shasta County. Working with Roots of Change, and The Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, we created a straight-forward site that allows the visitor to view slideshows of Hamilton's beautiful photos, read text about each story, and listen to audio interviews. An interactive map lets you sort stories based on location in the state, and select alternate satellite views, showing the state in terms of topography, working land, and light pollution.