Born in 1985 in Mesa, Arizona, is an American photographer best known for work made while traveling across the United States by freight train between 2004 and 2008. During this period, he documented the lives of people he encountered along the railways, including train-hoppers, vagabonds, squatters, and other itinerant communities, working from direct personal involvement rather than an external documentary position.

After leaving home at the age of 18, he spent several years freighthopping across the country. His earliest photographs from this time were made with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, later shifting to 35 mm film when Polaroid film was discontinued. These two phases form distinct bodies of work. The Polaroid images were later published as Tones of Dirt and Bone (2015), while the 35 mm photographs appeared in A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2013), a book that received widespread critical attention and established his reputation.

Both projects were developed with the support of TBW Books after he met publisher Paul Schiek in Oakland, California. Although A Period of Juvenile Prosperity was published first, the images in Tones of Dirt and Bone predate it chronologically. His later books include Polaroid Kid (2023) and Failing (2024), further consolidating the photobook as the primary form of his practice.

Following the release of A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, he stepped away from photography for several years, training and working as a diesel mechanic before returning to image-making in the late 2010s.

Reference:
Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), English edition. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Brodie