Joel Sternfeld was born in New York City in 1944. He graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Art. Sternfeld began taking photographs in 1970 after studying the color theory of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers. Some of his early work was taken with small and medium format cameras.
Sternfeld traversed the United States on a road trip in 1978. In his travels, Sternfeld captured the communities, cultures, landscapes, and quotidian life he encountered using an 8 x 10-inch camera.