The Americans I Met is a documentary photography and oral history project created between 2017 and 2019, during the first Trump presidency — a period marked by heightened political division and cultural tension in the United States. Traveling over 16,000 miles (26,000 km) without fixed routes or reservations, Hübner moved across the country by hitchhiking and walking, allowing encounters with strangers to determine both the journey and the work. 

Over two years, he crossed 41 states, gathering portraits and recorded conversations with people from widely different backgrounds. Much of the project unfolded through living with strangers, often by knocking on doors and asking for shelter for the night — deep in remote countryside as well as in large metropolitan centres. This embedded approach placed him inside private homes, daily routines, and informal social spaces, forming a photojournalistic and anthropological perspective grounded in presence, listening, and shared time.

Rather than pursuing a singular narrative, the project assembles a mosaic of voices and environments. Through the lives and words of the people he met, the project examines what it meant to be American during the Trump era — tracing how political divisions entered kitchens, living rooms, workplaces, and roadsides, and how fear, hope, faith, and fatigue surface in ordinary spaces. Moving between proximity and distance, the work presents a country encountered person by person, attentive to difference, contradiction, and the quiet humanity found in unexpected places.

Find more information about the published book The Americans I Met here.