This epic collection of street photos from 40 different US cities by the legendary Alex Webb took 16 years to create

Since the mid-1970s Alex Webb has been photographing life across the United States of America, though he initially began working in black and white. Following trips to Mexico and the Caribbean his signature style quickly switched to a vibrant colour look in his pictures, which he maintains to this day.

Blue is the colour behind his latest work – the book Alex Webb: Walking Blues, published by Aperture, which takes its inspiration from blues music; a musical art form that’s at the very beating heart of American culture.

Like much of his work, Webb’s visionary photographs concentrate on his documentation of chance encounters between people on the streets of the US, with a trademark style that makes you query the reality of many of his pictures.

You find yourself questioning your visual recognition abilities about what exactly is happening in his pictures, as if your eyes deceive you, such is the complex nature of his work and his innate ability to cram so much detail into every frame.

His street scenes are often abstract, sometimes obvious, but always puzzling and questioning. Amidst the work within Walking Blues there are some more obvious examples, like a Martin Parr-like shot of a couple sunbathing on a grassy bank in New Orleans, but such an image is the exception rather than the norm in Webb’s work.

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