Blue Motel, by Matteo Musci

Kicking off our Contender posts for the First Edition 2012 is Matteo Musci, an Italian photographer turned American road tripper. With their washed out colors, his quiet photographs on the road are reminiscent of film stills from yesteryear. Already making the blog rounds, the work was first exhibited in San Francisco's The Garage Sale Project. In introducing the work in Walkin' Solo, Garage Sale's Jack Halloway wrote:

Mostly void of lifeforms, Musci's images allow us a moment alone to gaze in repose amid the often overlooked beauty of an empty truck stop or musty roadside motel suite.

At the Diner, by Matteo Musci

Matteo Musci was born and raised in Milan, Italy. After a couple of years in the late '90s working as an art director in a big ad agency, he began shooting as a professional photographer and founded Zona13 Studio. As a photographer for Zona13, he worked all over Europe for a notable amount of ad agencies. In 2010, he started a new photographic cycle, leaving his ad portfolio behind and focusing on a more personal kind of photography, where neat composition and washy color are the main themes. Now he lives between San Francisco and Milan.