Hawkeye Huey documenting the American West. Photo via Kickstarter.
Hawkeye Huey documenting the American West. Photo via Kickstarter.

On a platform congested with heavily-filtered brunch photos, rich kid parties, and perfectly curated selfies, 5-year old Hawkeye Huey’s analog style and surprisingly mature eye provide a breath of fresh air.

Hawkeye’s unlikely rise to fame started when he and his father, National Geographic photographer Aaron Huey, were on a road trip. Aaron bought his son an instant film camera to document the trip, and the results were mesmerizing.

Hawkeye Huey
Instagram/hawkeyehuey.

“This knee-high perspective of desert dwellers and tumbleweeds was a new addition to the tradition of documenting the American West,” said Aaron in a video promoting their Kickstarter project.

The Seattle-based pair are crowdfunding a book, titled “Cowboys Indians Hobos Gamblers Patriots Tourists & Sunsets,” to display Hawkeye’s work. So far the project has raised $27,588 but it won’t be funded unless it reaches its $35,000 goal by Friday.

That goal seems within reach, given Hawkeye’s devoted online following. As of Oct. 19, he has 129,000 Instagram followers and earned a spot on Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Instagram Accounts.

Despite his son’s online celebrity, Aaron Huey is careful to point out that this project is not about Hawkeye’s precocious artistic gift.

“This after all was not about holding Hawkeye out as some kind of prodigy,” he says, “but about embracing the creativity and vision of all children.”

Watch the project’s inspiring Kickstarter video below:

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