Fullerton residents are choosing to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday this year in different ways. Local author David Jerome, who has visited all 50 states, has decided to commemorate the country’s semiquincentennial with a book of photographs that he took through the viewfinder of his iPhone camera while traveling across the United States over the past fifteen years. Recently, while walking north of downtown Fullerton, I ran into Jerome and had a conversation with him about his book.

Jerome writes in his introduction, “Just like nearly everyone else, I’ve had different generations of iPhones through the years. You may notice some lesser quality, earlier generation photos, as the camera and the photographer were both improving. With the convenience of always having a camera in my pocket, I’ve been able to capture some unique views, spontaneous moments…without carrying around expensive and bulky equipment. There was no planning or set-up for these photos. My only real problem was keeping my pocket lint off the lens.”

His book, iLoveAmerica: An iPhone photographic tour of the U.S.A. on her 250th birthday, contains over 200 iPhone images that have been both digitally preserved and physically printed; they showcase some of the more offbeat places, people, and events that he has encountered across the country. Most were taken between 2017 and 2021. When published altogether, his amalgamation of photos makes for a fascinating, yet somewhat random snapshot of the United States. What also stands out to me is how these images we capture on our phones are taken more seriously when they’re printed out within large coffee table books.

When I talked with Jerome, he said, “I had this idea, when I first started 10 or 15 years ago, to try and document each place that I went with one good picture (with the idea of eventually putting them into a book). The reason I did it now is because of America’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday.”

One of Jerome’s most memorable experiences while photographing across the country came when he was visiting Monument Valley with his family during the COVID years. On the back cover, there’s a wide landscape shot of an old, oversized red arrow pointing toward one of the southwest buttes of Monument Valley, an image which he titled, “Where’s the Butte?”

He said, “We went out there and stayed at this motel that was just right by the buttes. Nobody else was there, first of all, because nobody’s traveling at that time, so we practically had the motel to ourselves. I was up fairly early, and so this was a morning shot where I was just walking around the motel and noticed this big red arrow that was pointing people in the direction to drive for parking. But I walked by it, and I thought if you angle it just right, it appears that it’s pointing you to the butte.”

Back in Fullerton, next to the desk where he writes, Jerome has an old U.S.A. road map on which he uses a black marker to trace out each and every highway he has traveled on throughout the country. He remembers that his first road trip around the United States was back in 1988. He was privileged enough to travel every few years, and tried to pick a different route each time.

Interestingly, the front cover of his book is more of a candid, documentary street photography shot that depicts a bunch of people dressed in Santa hats and elf costumes facing away from the camera as they work to deflate one of the holiday-themed Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons in Manhattan.

Jerome said, “This is one of my earliest pictures and one of the most interesting because this was a bucket list experience that I had where I wanted to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It’s such a great American tradition, and so eventually, I found my way into it and was able to be one of the balloon handlers for the Elf on the Shelf balloon. At the end of the parade, after you’re on TV in front of Macy’s, they take you around the corner, and this is where they deflate the balloons. So this was all my coworkers, and we were all in charge of getting the helium out of the balloon. I just thought it made such an interesting picture because you always see the balloons flying through the skyline, but you don’t see what happens after. They deflate it, just put it in one of these bins, and they haul it back to New Jersey, where it hangs out in a warehouse until next Thanksgiving, so that’s just kind of the other side of the Macy’s parade.”

For Jerome, iLoveAmerica is not just about visiting all fifty states; it’s an exploration of road trip memories on the highways, byways, back roads, and just the smaller, out-of-the-way places that make for a somewhat cohesive and celebratory look at the United States on its 250th birthday.

For anyone interested in a free digital PDF of the book, email David Jerome at his author page by visiting the following link: https://davidjeromeauthor.com.

Hard copies of his book are available at the Fullerton Museum, with all proceeds donated to the museum.