Photographer Thomas Giddings is not one to do short and snappy names as There's No Other Place Like This Place Anywhere Near This place, So This Must Be the Place attests. The premise of Giddings' second solo exhibition at The Carpet Shop is a simple one though as he presents a series of images documenting his road trip from New York to Los Angeles traversing through Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. Adding to the widely explored American vernacular, Giddings presents an intimate body of work that will also be published as a book with text by Kevin West, West Coast editor of W Magazine.  

On the journey...
"In a vague mid-quarter life crisis what started as a 7 day trip to New York became a 2 month, 4,000 mile long road trip across North America in a 30 foot long RV – and I don’t even have a driving license. With four friends I began my journey in New York, passing through 16 states including Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico travelling along some parts of the old route 66 and finally ending my journey in Los Angeles. I was fascinated equally as fascinated by the places we saw along our journey – often travelling hours through abandoned villages without seeing another vehicle - as the people we encountered. Both were a bigger cliché of them themselves than I could ever have expected or hoped for."

On the three images shown here...
‘Tulsa, Oklahoma’ - "It's from a bar full of toothless men and prostitutes where the house shot was called ‘the read headed slut’ - named after the bar woman who was dancing in this picture."

‘Painted Desert, Arizona’ - "I don’t know the woman’s name, she was a total stranger whose face blends into the rocks behind her in the middle of the painted desert, named thus because it is full of vivid pinks /reds purples as if it was just a painted backdrop – but it stretches as far as the eye can see."

‘Dinosaur Walk, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee’ - "Pigeon Forge is a mini Las Vegas style fake city that has popped up in the middle of nowhere due to a huge influx of tourists to the area to visit the ‘Dollywood’ theme park. This picture was taken out of the window of our van."

'There's No Other Place Like This Place Anywhere Near This place, So This Must Be the Place' by Thomas Giddings at The Carpet Shop, 34a New Inn Yard, EC2A 3EY on over the weekend with the book available next week.