The INSIDER Summary:
• Photographer Paul Mobley traveled to every state to photograph people 100+ years old.
• Meeting the centenarians was inspiring, and they shared their secrets to longevity.
• Advice included owning a dog, never going to the doctor, and concoctions like drinking a beer and eating an apple at the same time.
As Paul Mobley traveled around the US to photograph homesteads for his book, "American Farmer," he was shocked to learn that many of the older family members he saw working out in the fields were over 100 years old.
"I took about 30,000 pictures for that farmer book, and by the time it was done, not only did I realize that I had quite a collection of centenarians, but I had really come to grow very fond of them," he told INSIDER.
He decided to make them the focus of his next book, driving across the country in a motor home to photograph centenarians in all 50 states. In "If I Live To Be 100: The Wisdom of Centenarians," each portrait includes a profile of the subject with charming stories from their youth and their advice for living past 100.
Mobley's task was daunting: to capture the story of over 100 years in a single portrait.
He chose to take the photographs in black and white, and keep them close in order to focus on the details in the person's face.
"How do you come up with a portrait that is moving and touches people when they look at it, when it's somebody who they've never met before?" he said. "That was really what I went in hoping to find, that spark or that twinkle in their eye as to what gave them such a long life."
Mobley, along with his wife and dog, would pull their motor home into small towns and visit local establishments.
He remembers meeting a woman in Rhode Island who invited him to join her for a doughnut and coffee at a shop she'd been going to every day for 60 years. When she turned 100, the shop awarded her free doughnuts for the rest of her life.
"It's that kind of stuff that made it so great, just being able to go into those towns, meet those people, see how they live," he said.
Driving around each place helped him get a feel for their hometowns.
"I'd always wanted to get in a motor home and drive across the country," he said. "I guess everybody kind of does."
Sometimes, his subjects would even get behind the wheel themselves.
"I had a 103-year-old drive my car, take me for a ride in our motor home. He says, 'I'll show you how to drive that car, sonny!'"
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