Much has happened to Mike Brodie since 2002, when, as a bored seventeen-year-old from Pensacola, Florida, he boarded his first freight train in search of something to do. He discovered freedom and photography, and soon the world discovered him. His melancholy images of young train-hoppers captivated the online photography community. Excited discussion grew into a flood of blog posts and magazine articles. The established art world soon followed, with exhibitions across the United States and a group show at the Louvre in Paris. Viewers marvelled at his warm-toned photographs of teenagers and twenty-somethings suspended in a seemingly endless rail journey, praising them as a striking solo debut, wholly authentic and strangely melancholic. The series has continued to gain recognition, becoming a book, now in its fourth edition, and a major gallery exhibition, both aptly titled A Period of Juvenile Prosperity.