Kevin Russ

For two years, photographer Kevin Russ lived out of his car, documenting the wildlife and rugged landscapes of America with only his iPhone. Eight of his favorite spots make up his first book, The Western States: Mount Rainier and the North Cascades in Washington, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Marble Canyon in Arizona, Montana de Oro State Park and Desolation Wilderness in California, Glacier National Park in Montana and across the border to not-exactly-a-state Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico. Russ left his DSLR and film cameras at home and brought along his iPhone to simplify the process.

“When any artist puts limitations on themselves, they become much more creative,” says Russ who worked as a portrait photographer and inspector at a stock photo agency before setting off. “For portrait work, I used to blur out the background or shoot into the sun because the background didn’t mattter. I did that for years. But the iPhone forces me to compose the entire photo—foreground and background. It’s changed the way I see things.”