Liam Kennedy's SHAKEDOWN explores complicated themes of the leather-clad, violent and burly bikers, uncovering a tenderness and tribal approach to freedom in an uncertain world while reimagining the American pop culture narrative and the relevance of a new generation of bikers; many of whom embrace nonconformity and forge bonds with man and machine, often sacrificing life, limb and acceptance in exchange for their own authenticity.

"Drawing on a tradition of photojournalism documenting outlaws from Danny Lyon onwards, it updated the genre in a fresh and novel way, bringing vibrancy, humour, tenderness and a brutal honesty. I admire the dedication to the project, but most of all, wanted to know more about the subjects."- Sarah Gilbert (The Guardian) for the Daylight Photo Awards 2024

Artist Biography
Liam Kennedy is a photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Syracuse, NY. He began his career when he joined the Navy in 2012 and has since pursued a career in photojournalism after leaving the service in 2020, documenting events such as the tornado that ravaged Mayfield, KY as well as the war in Ukraine and working for clients such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Mother Jones. Kennedy has also documented the modern-day biker over the course of the last 10 years, riding and photographing more than 60,000 miles on a chopper he built with his friends, culminating in his first monograph SHAKEDOWN with Fall Line Press.

Expected Fall 2025
Hardcover
Photography by Liam Kennedy
Photo Editing by Liam Kennedy, Bill Boling, Mark Murrmann and Bonnie Bryant
Design by Bonnie Bryant

"In the fall of 1969, Jeff Nightbyrd and I left Los Angeles and traveled to the deep south. We planned to fashion a book out of photos and interviews. It was conceived as a collaboration in the manner of James Agee and Walker Evans; a "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men”. E. P. Dutton gave us a small advance to publish the book.

Jeff, who was editor of "Rat", one of the best known of the "underground" newspapers of the era, faced a feminist revolt at his New York weekly. He was also caught up in the Chicago 7 trial (stemming from riot charges at the 1968 Democratic Convention) as a close friend of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. I got divorced. Tragically, our editor at E.P. Dutton, Hal Scharlett, died.

The book was never published.

There was no way to know, at the time, that this was the end of the white south. The familiar system of white dominance that had remained largely unchanged throughout southern American history was over. The spring of 1970 saw the massive integration of the schools all over the south, and bussing in the border states. The white southern vote for President Richard Nixon in 1968 had yielded little, if any, support for a system in defeat. The white resistance collapsed over the winter of 1969/1970. It is but a memory now." - Doy Gorton on the creation of this project.


Artist Biography:
Doy D. Gorton is a photojournalist who worked as Chief Photographer of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Washington Photographer for the New York Times covering the White House and Capitol Hill. Gorton attended the University of Mississippi where he became engaged with the Civil Rights Movement through Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis. He is the only white Mississippian on the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Estimated Release Spring/Summer 2025
Photographs by Doy Gorton
Hardback Cloth Cover
120 Pages
110 Black and White Photographs
Essays by Jane Adams PhD, William Boling, Addrain Conyers PhD, and James Estrin, New York Times
ISBN: 979-8-9876258-1-1