Mike Brodie - Episode 99

Sep 25, 2025

Photographer Mike Brodie, celebrated for his impactful books including A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, shares his journey from a tumultuous childhood to hopping freight trains and documenting drifters. He reflects on the early fame that propelled his career before walking away to become a diesel mechanic. Now returning to photography with his new book Failing, he discusses how it encapsulates 12 years of work, shaped through collaboration with Paul Schiek, embracing a darker and more personal tone that signals his artistic evolution.

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ANECDOTE

From Mesa To BMX Beginnings

Mike Brodie grew up in Mesa, Arizona with an often-absent father and found independence through BMX biking as a teen.
That early street scene set the stage for his later attraction to punk communities and transient subcultures.

ANECDOTE

Polaroids And The Punk Scene

In Pensacola Mike met punk kids and found a Polaroid camera that shifted his focus from BMX to portrait-making of train riders.
That new camera and scene opened a world of portrait subjects and rail-rider communities for him to document.

ADVICE

Choose Photos By The Instant Feeling

Trust the instant feeling that a photograph 'looks back' at you as the main selector of strong images.
Use that emotional impulse rather than overanalyzing to choose photos that matter to you.

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In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, photographer Mike Brodie talks about his raw, intimate and powerful new book, Failing (Twin Palms). Growing up with a tough home life, Brodie found escape in the punk and BMX scenes before, at just 17, he began hopping freight trains and photographing the drifters and outcasts he met on the rails. Those images became A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2013), a groundbreaking book that launched his career. After that early success, Brodie walked away from the art world to become a diesel mechanic. Now, age 40, with a son, he reunites with longtime collaborator Paul Schiek ( TBW Books) to publish Failing and reflects with Sasha on his journey, the challenges of early fame, and what it means to return to photography on his own terms.

https://www.instagram.com/mikebrodie_thepolaroidkidd

https://www.twinpalms.com/products/mike-brodie-failing

Mike Brodie’s first monograph, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity touched down more than a decade ago, depicting his fellow rail-riders and drifters in a rebellious and wildfire pursuit of adventure and freedom. “Brodie leapt into the life of picture-making as if he was the first to do it,” Danny Lyon wrote about the book in Aperture. Next came Tones of Dirt and Bone, a collection of earlier SX-70 pictures Brodie made when photography first led him to hopping freights, when he was known as “The Polaroid Kidd.” And then Brodie seemed to disappear from the art world as suddenly and mysteriously as he’d first appeared. Maybe his vanishing was another myth. Maybe it was just a necessary retreat. “I was divorcing myself from all that,” he says. “I was growing up. I was pursuing this other life.” In Nashville he became a diesel mechanic. Fell in love. Moved across the country again. Got married. Bought land on the long dusty Winnemucca road Johnny Cash sang about. Started his own business. Built a house. Put down roots. And when that life exploded, the open road called again. Throughout almost all of it, his cameras were with him, and at last those pictures are coming to light.