Charlie Tadlock: Cruise Control

Charlie Tadlock: Cruise Control by Daniel GeorgeMay 8, 2025

©Charlie Tadlock

For the past few days we have been looking at the work of artists who I met at this year’s Society for Photographic Education conference during the portfolio reviews. Up last, we have Cruise Control by Charlie Tadlock.

Charlie Tadlock is a visual artist and educator working predominantly in lens-based media and installation, currently based in Sandy, UT where he teaches photography at the middle and high school levels. Born and raised in Seattle, WA – Charlie holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from Central Washington University (2024, Ellensburg WA) as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Photography from Montana State University (2020, Bozeman MT) His work is held in permanent collections at the University of Wyoming and Montana State University, and has been widely exhibited regionally and nationally, including multiple solo and collaborative exhibitions during his time in Montana and Washington.

His current practice explores the American highway as a central thread, with specific interest in Western American road culture and the landscape surrounding these roads. Charlie works across media, combining still and moving images, along with installation and bookmaking. For his work, he was awarded the Society for Photographic Education Innovations in Imaging Award in 2024.

For Charlie, it all starts with a camera. Even pieces which are not predominantly photo based begin with a camera in his hands.

Follow Charlie on Instagram: @tadlockphoto

©Charlie Tadlock

Cruise Control

Defined by the social and political issues that surround this vast region, the highway has influenced generations of photographers and continues to influence many more. Through a multi-faceted visual and technical approach, my work centers on the road through the rural American West, where the regional identity of rugged independence has created a highway culture that centers around transience and positions prosperity and people as temporary.

Cruise Control focuses primarily on my travels through the American West during the summer of 2023, tracing my travel in a non-linear narrative as I lived and breathed the roads I make artwork about. Nostalgic for a nebulous past that never existed but seemingly endures in small rural communities, I connect the legacies of past road culture photographers as I track my presence in the landscape as both character and artist. Contextualizing these locations through a variety of viewpoints reveals a more discerning look at the highway landscape, one conscious of its shortcomings, inequities, and history. Through sustained analysis of the space surrounding the highway, I seek to highlight – both technically and conceptually – the tension between ephemeral growth, prosperity, and transience that exists in the landscape.

©Charlie Tadlock

Daniel George: Tell us what brought about Cruise Control and your scrutiny of highway culture?

Charlie Tadlock: I’ve been interested in the highway for a while now. Most of my work has held some relationship to the road but I really was able to explore and deepen my understanding through this specific body of work.I have always been fascinated by the senses of tension – particularly on western highways. The sense that this is a conduit and a connector that shortens the gap between people is contradicted by the still vast swaths of land between places. An idea of the highway as an economic bastion contrasted with the reality that many towns were bypassed by the interstate highway system as speed limits, fuel efficiency, and automobile reliability increased. A sense of individualism and freedom is contradicted by the fact that these are in fact highly planned and curated routes (curation that didn’t generally consider the views of all people – only some, it bears noting) which are some of the most visible and utilized government projects in modern American history.

On another note, as much as I have deeper conceptual interests in the highway – I can’t help that there is also the simpler fact that I love cars, driving, and car culture broadly which took me in this direction in the first place.

©Charlie Tadlock

DG: As far as your interest in landscape is concerned, it seems as if you are drawn to spaces that are neglected due to their ordinariness (based on what we can see on your website). It’s as if you are slowing down (literally with Cruise Control) and giving extra thought to the commonplace. What attracts you to these types of locations?

CT: This is absolutely what I am drawn to. I am so fascinated by the presence of people within spaces which exude “ordinary”. Despite people not often appearing in my work, the work is inherently rooted in the spaces occupied by people – with most of its elements coming from human interventions in the landscape. There is nothing wrong with the ordinary in my mind, despite how I think a lot of people perceive it. I am fascinated by the tension between idealism and reality that permeates the American West, and I am drawn to each side of this tension equally. The reality in this case is more often than not the ordinary. Perhaps that’s why I find myself pointing my camera to the ordinary – to capture the reality of these spaces in order to contrast them with the more widely known and understood ideal.

©Charlie Tadlock

DG: When we discussed this work, we spent a lot of time looking at the book that you self-published. Could you talk more about this format and why you feel that sort of mediated narrative approach lends itself to this particular project?

CT: Sure! I love photo books (as I think many photographers do these days), and I particularly feel that with the somewhat narrative basis for my work, the book format makes a lot of sense. With that said, the book format of Cruise Control doesn’t follow a linear or chronological narrative, but since it is largely rooted in a single experience and journey, the narrative bent of the book format still seems to make the most sense for the work. I am also always drawn to layering in my work – compositional layers within images, layering images on top of one another (seen in the installation format of the work or my past work “Vast and Solitary Lands”) – and the book format allows me to bring this into a new dimension. In this book I incorporate printed vellum inserts in the sequence which allow a sense of transparency and layering that is not usually possible with opaque pages. In addition, I view the interaction between pages in spreads, and between spreads throughout the book as an additional sort of layering of images, compositions, and meaning.

I am also a fan of the book format for this work in that it can both mediate the viewing of the work and allow a more sporadic and personal sequence of the work. The book is a completely handmade item with just over 200 pages which contain about 100 images. I have noticed that people often see such a long sequence and begin flipping through randomly, pausing when something catches their eye, or jumping around in a less linear fashion. I love this method of seeing the work in its own way. It tells me that people are connecting with the less formal side of this genre of photography and are creating their own journey through the images and the sequence that they invent. There are obviously those (yourself included, if memory serves) who will begin at the beginning and end at the ending – and there is a sequence embedded here too. There are connections, threads, and storylines which appear in this way of viewing the book as well – but these are not the end all and be all of the work – and I encourage both methods of going through the book.

©Charlie Tadlock

DG: You write about having been interested in seeking out a sense of longing for “a nebulous past that never existed but seemingly endures in small rural communities.” What more did you discover about this concept during your travels?

CT: I don’t know that I was so much interested in seeking that out – as I was already feeling a sense of longing or nostalgia for this. I don’t know if I could even define the “past” that I have a nostalgia for without writing a novel, though I think a lot of it comes down to a longing for a sense of community. During my time in Montana I found that I was drawn to the idea of the small town Main Street – a thing I hadn’t really had growing up in Seattle. In talking to people, I think there is a good number who share some of my longing for community – even those who live in more urban centers talk about the idea of walkable cities, human centered design, and a desire for a local community feeling (it is not lost on me, I should note, the irony that the lack of these sorts of things in some urban environments is due to car-centric urban planning).

What I discovered is that these characteristics often still exist most in smaller communities. These are often more rural – though not always, and their size encourages community building, interconnectedness, and a sense of reliance on one another. The past I feel nostalgic for is another example of ideal and reality clashing as I make my work. I grew up in a city, am young enough to have not really known a world without cell phones, and so much of this longing is shaped by media, by stories, and by the idealism of the West – not by my actual lived experiences. The reality of traveling through these spaces is very different. Especially following the impacts of Covid – small businesses have taken the bulk of the hit, local grocers have been replaced by dollar stores, and fewer people are choosing to live outside of urban centers.

©Charlie Tadlock

DG: In what ways do you feel this work contributes to the storied dialogue of highway culture as depicted by artists?

CT: The extensive history of this area of the photographic landscape is undeniable and has certainly been on my mind since the beginning of the project. Questions like “how is this work different?” circulated throughout the project. Despite this uncertainty initially, I was still so enamored with the road and drawn to this way of making images. I don’t think I’m reinventing the wheel here – rather refining and offering my own perspective on the matter. This is a genre which has clearly spoken to generations of viewers, and I am continuing in that storied tradition. I have tried to work in easter eggs, small references, to the history of the genre here and there – referencing specific images or compositional strategies by notable photographers in the “open road” method of making. I have tried to take a more broad view of these spaces, a view which is “conscious of its shortcomings, inequities, and history” as I state in the artist statement for the project. I’m under no illusion that the highway is perfect, that these spaces are devoid of issues – and I try to grapple with this existing alongside personally having a deep seated love and longing for the highway landscape and spaces alongside it.