The photographic road trip is a rite of passage for many American photographers. From Robert Frank to Stephen Shore, Jacob Holdt, and more recently Timothy Briner, Victoria Sambunaris and Justine Kurland, it's a vital piece of America's evolving photographic history. But, like photographs of old road signs, abandoned motels and Instagram influencers peering from their tents into "glorious nature," it's often riddled with visual and cultural tropes.

Photographer Ian Bates makes this his own with a quiet, thoughtful series that captures a constellation of America by way of the Meadowlark – also the title of the series – a small grassland bird that's constantly fleeing its home when conflict approaches. Upon learning it was the official state bird of North Dakota,  Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming, Bates – who grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Seattle, Washington – has traveled to the six states, photographing as the wind and his Subaru take him. 

In one image, a man stands on the side of the road dressed like a disheveled stockbroker, shirt half untucked, gripping his shoulder bag with 50% confidence. Another image shows a brutal closeup of a purplish bruise on a man's side, and another – shot from a distance – shows a treehouse emblazoned with a small, Sharpie-drawn anarchist circle-A. Culled together, these images present a pointed, yet broken narrative – a series of questions that almost tell a story, but leave the viewer hanging on an ellipsis.  I caught up with him to learn more about his journeys. 

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Ian Bates