Historic Route 66 is an eight state 2400 mile voyage that stretches from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. The history associated with this stretch of highway dates back as far as the 1920's. What was once called "Main Street of America" has been reduced to skeletal remains in some places while others are still thriving to this day. Route 66 was considered a main thoroughfare of travel because of the numerous small towns, businesses, lodging, and gas stations that existed along the highway. During the Great Depression, this stretch of highway played an integral part in families moving from the east coast to the west coast looking for work. However, the highway began to be realigned making room for new highways with a higher speed limit. Little by little the alignment of Route 66 was changing. Some businesses made it through the change while others completely disappeared. As many others have said before, it is truly sad this piece of American history had to be nearly destroyed all for another exit or newer highway. This has been an ongoing project over the last six years and will continue until we have the entire route photographed and documented.

The photographs shown in this portfolio were created using a few different tools. We used cell phones like the iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 11 Pro Max, Google Pixel 3XL, LG V60 ThinQ, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra were used. On a humorous note, it sort of looks like we have an "Addiction to Cell Phones" problem that needs an intervention. However, each cell phone was researched and served a purpose. For example, The Google Pixel 3XL has amazing capabilities in low light situations with an awesome range in shadows, mid tones and highlights. In contrast, the Samsung Galaxy S22 has the 108 MP camera system, image stabilization, and camera raw capabilities along with an impressive range from blacks to whites. Additionally, we used the Canon 60D and Canon 6D when time would allow us to. All 24 photographs in this portfolio were managed in Adobe Bridge and color balanced together as a whole in one document in Adobe Photoshop CC.