1970s Drive-In Theaters: Photo Gallery of The Nostalgic Era of Roadside Cinema

For more than forty years, Steve Fitch has been photographing the American West revealing its changing vernacular landscape and vanishing roadside attractions. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, and while teaching photography at the ASUC Studio on the Berkeley campus, Fitch began work on a project photographing the vernacular roadside of the American highway. 

He received two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships to aid in completing this project, one in 1973 and the second in 1975, and published the acclaimed monograph, Diesels, and Dinosaurs (1976). His serial photographs of the Drive-Ins, seen together, shape an intriguing typology of a disappearing architectural form. 

These cinematic landmarks are now mostly artifacts of a shifting cultural landscape; they are, however, perfectly preserved in Fitch’s extraordinary photographs, which mostly picture their subject under the fluorescent glow of the Drive-In’s signage.

Throughout his career, Fitch has remained dedicated to capturing the beauty and character of the American landscape. He continues to travel the country, taking photographs and sharing his passion for vernacular architecture and signage with others.

Steve Fitch: Drive-In Theaters will exhibit until March 4th at the Joseph Bellows Gallery.