Mike Hettwer Photography - Documentary, Archaeology and Dinosaur

America 24/7 & America at Home Books

America 24/7 was the largest photo project ever completed and included 1,000 professional photographers shooting all fifty states for one week. Out of over a million photos submitted to America 24/7by thousands of photographers, two photos were selected for the national America 24/7 book and sixteen photos were selected for the Illinois 24/7 state book. America 24/7 was a New York Times Best Seller and the second most popular photography book of all time.

America at Home was another large national photography book project with over 250,000 photos submitted by thousands of photographers. Three photos were selected for the America at Home book.

(c) 2008 Mike Hettwer Photo

Young Lilly Baker is about 15 seconds old as her father reaches down to kiss her mother upon the delivery of their third child. This photo was selected for the America 24/7 national photo book.
  
Foreman Curly Thomas pours the 2,200 degree recycled steel into a large caldron for transport. The designer steel was used for making dies for stamping out fighter aircraft wings.
  
Sparks fly as a steel worker adds oxygen and charcoal to superheat the steel in this mill located just two miles from downtown Chicago.
     
  
A walk-in stabbing victim bled all the way from the front door of the hospital to the bed. Cook County Hospital is one of the top-rated trauma units in the US and 99% of all patients brought in with a pulse survive.
  
Almost every apartment on Waveland Avenue has bleachers on the roofs to watch the Chicago Cubs playing across the street.
   
Dedicated Cubs fans Kristi Carpenter and Dan Kiernan have lived across the street from Wrigley Field for several years. On this night the Cubs played the Cincinnati Reds in their late season playoff drive and lost 5-2.
     
  
A Chicago woman falls asleep after a long night of dancing while the city continues to go all night.
  
Eddie Jacobic lives on the south side of the airport in a direct flight path for Southwest Airlines. A plane arrives every five minutes for 18 hours each day.
   
Artist Wesley Kimler sometimes works 48 hours straight to create large-scale paintings in his Chicago loft.
     
  
The artist paints, cuts the thick paper, and reassembles it into new amoeba-like paintings.