Signed at Paris Photo, 2024. The Bikeriders is far more than a traditional photography book; it represents the beating heart of American biker culture in the early 1960s. The result of four years of dedication (from 1963 to 1967), Lyon lived alongside the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, documenting their lives from within. He was not an outside observer but a member himself—a photographer who chose to fully immerse himself in the subculture he was portraying. The book combines raw and authentic black-and-white photographs with transcriptions of tape-recorded interviews, giving direct voice to the protagonists. Names such as Benny, Johnny, Cowboy, and Cockroach emerge as real individuals, with stories of the road, violence, brotherhood, and freedom. Lyon described the work as an attempt to “record and glorify the life of the American biker,” without mediation or editorial filter. The photographs portray bikers in motion—often taken from moving vehicles—and were shot using film like Kodak Tri-X developed in D76, a technique that lends the images their vibrant, tactile quality, now considered iconic. Over time, the book also inspired a film of the same name, which adapts many of the original interview transcripts and visually recreates the immediate atmosphere and stylistic impact of Lyon’s photographs. Danny Lyon (born 1942 in Brooklyn, raised in Chicago) is one of the most influential figures of photographic New Journalism—an approach that emphasizes total immersion of the photographer in the world being documented. Lyon saw himself not merely as a witness but as a participant in the stories he was telling. From an early age, he was involved in the civil rights movement, working as a photographer for the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), and was present at several key moments in African American activism. The Bikeriders also challenged prevailing cultural narratives, offering an unfiltered and compelling portrait of American outsiders. Beyond the world of bikers, Lyon has turned his lens to other marginalized or endangered communities, including Texas prisons (Conversations with the Dead), the urban decay of The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, and Native American cultures (Indian Nations), all approached with the same immersive and narrative sensibility. His work has earned him numerous prestigious accolades, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Missouri Honor Medal, and solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum and other major American institutions. The strength of The Bikeriders lies in its empathetic realism. Conceived as a “saturation reportage,” the book tells the story of a subculture through intimate photographs and genuine testimonies, erasing the distance between photographer and subject. The images capture bikers on the road, moments of celebration, dirt-track races, and communal rituals—a world filled with adrenaline, risk, and conflict. Alongside these visuals, the testimonies allow us to hear the motivations, memories, and fears of those who embraced a life lived outside conventional norms. The book has had a profound influence on how biker culture is perceived in the mainstream, reflecting the free spirit of the 1960s American counterculture—a mix of rebellion, brotherhood, and romanticism for the open road. The tone of the work is both affectionate toward the bikers and critical of their excesses. Although Lyon portrays them with respect, his disillusionment emerges—for example, in his discomfort recalling a picnic where a member used a Nazi flag as a picnic blanket, a gesture disturbingly normalized in the group’s camaraderie. The style expresses subjectivity: not a detached reportage, but a warm, lived-in document—as if the photographer wished to give back what he experienced, becoming a part of the group himself. The interaction between image and text creates a work that is both sociological and aesthetic in nature—a quintessential example of visual narrative journalism.