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Hanna Quevedo's Dessert First! is an intimate but voyeuristic documentation of rural America

Mexico City-based film photographer Hanna Quevedo has just launched her new book Dessert First!, which chronicles her travels across the United States.

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Woman with long dark curly hair and tattoos on her arms leaning out of a window, looking directly at the camera in grainy analogue colour photography

The photography book is characterised by ultra grainy imagery that underscores the artist's sense of "hopeful curiosity," as New Orleans-based publisher Burn Barrel Press puts it.

Quevedo designed the book through the educational programme Incubadora Fotolibros Program at photography project Hydra under the guidance of designer Ramon Pez and photographer Ana Casas Broda.

Hanna Quevedo was born in Spain and is now based in Mexico City working in portrait and documentary photography. Known for her intensely saturated analogue images, her style is candid and visceral, but also tender in its delineation of people and places. This new work is both intimate and voyeuristic, showcasing lesser-documented sides of urban and rural America through her unique viewpoint.

A woman with dark hair and arms raised emerges from a carnival ride decorated with colourful graffiti art, bare trees visible in the background
Two people with facial tattoos and purple hair stand close together outdoors, wearing denim jackets and band t-shirts in an urban setting

Quevedo studied photography at the San Telmo School of Arts and Communication Sciences at the University of Malaga. In 2006 she moved to Mexico, living in Guadalajara for a year before travelling to the United States to work as a photojournalist. For the past decade, she's been crisscrossing the US with a camera strapped around her neck, shooting with her 35mm camera between commissioned assignments from various media platforms, arts organisations and more.

Hanna Quevedo has exhibited her work in Spain, the US, and Mexico. She has also been involved with several activist groups from the Bay Area and served as a photo-voice-teacher for kids from Latino and LGBT+ communities at the Youth Leadership Institute.

Woman in a silver sequined dress with long black hair and a pearl necklace gestures with her arm outstretched against a dark nighttime background
Two women hold tennis rackets while standing in an overgrown woodland clearing, both wearing goggles pushed up on their heads

"There is no single America. It's a country of contradictions, a country of multitudes. Hanna's book beautifully showcases the wonder, the strangeness, the terror, the joy, the pain, the heartbreak, and the triumph of this confusing place," says Chris Hrasky of Explosions In The Sky.

"Her photos tell stories of people trying to find their place and make sense of a country that has forever been undefinable. It’s a glorious collection of work."

Dessert First! is published on 27 July 2021.

An adult and child sit on plastic chairs facing a large wooden structure covered with protest signs and slogans on a sandy beach.
Child in white dress on a yellow roundabout with metal bars at a playground in rural America
A figure wrapped in striped bandages and wearing a wide-brimmed hat sits holding a cigarette, dressed in a vibrant patchwork jacket in shades of green, brown and red
Man holding a portable stereo boombox with dual speakers while wearing a brown jacket
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