Phil Jung, 34

Jung, who came to Mass Art from a high school teaching gig in New York, drove through local beach communities looking for a subject. "I came across a bright orange Cadillac with a bottle of aspirin and a toothbrush" on the dashboard, he says. He was off and running. His topic: cars. "They're portraits of the people who own them," Jung says.

Automobiles are also a metaphor for the peculiarly American freedom of the open road. The symbol is particularly poignant now, as the American auto industry flags. As his project has evolved, Jung has even shot hearses. "At the end of the day," he says, "we're the object in the back of the car." Information: www.jungphil.com