Picture Show: No Lifeguard on Duty

Picture Show > GOOD, J. Bennett Fitts on May 27, 2009 at 8:00 am PDT

J. Bennett Fitts traveled some 20,000 miles to produce 'No Lifeguard on Duty,' an investigation of America's forgotten roadside motels. These vestiges of an earlier era—when families packed into their cars for summer vacations via two-lane highways—now exist in various stages of operation and disrepair. With their parking-lot-adjacent swimming pools prominently in the foreground, the motels reveal a decayed Americana and a near permanent sense of vacancy. However, beyond the cracked paint and the decrepit chain-links lies the nostalgia of life on the open road.