FAIRHOPE, Ala. — While many artists and writers call Fairhope home, it’s also a popular way station for creative souls on the road.

But few arrive in a unique Volkswagen Rialta recreational vehicle on one leg of a romantic journey of America.

Earlier this month, customers at The Coffee Loft were treated to an impromptu art exhibit by a Bulgarian photographer traveling the country for a book about the United States.

Jacko Vassilev, and his wife, Valentina, showed up suddenly on a recent weekend morning at that popular coffee shop with portfolios in hand and tales of their travels.

Within a few minutes, a table in the shop became a busy gallery with customers gazing at black-and-white photos chronicling the lives of the Bulgarian people in the years before and after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

“You could get thrown in prison for telling a joke,” said Vassilev, as he captivated a small audience with stories of life in Bulgaria before the revolutions, which started in Poland and swept other Soviet-style Eastern-bloc countries such as Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania.

One photograph, called “The First Kiss of Freedom,” shows a close-up of a man gripping and kissing another’s forehead shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

As customers flipped through the portfolios, Vassilev gave some background on the pictures.

“I saw him walking out of a barn carrying that yoke in his hands,” Vassilev said, pointing at the photo of a face framed by a yoke. “He was on his way to the fields where his mule was waiting. When I asked him if I could take his picture, he said, ‘Yes,’ but also told me that, ‘Everyone carries a yoke in this life.’”

The man’s comment became that picture’s title: “The Yoke of Life.”

Many of Vassilev’s photographs have stories like that behind them.

“The entire tortuous, convoluted history of Bulgaria is written upon the faces of Vassilev’s subjects,” a journalist from New Mexico notes on the photographer’s Web site. “But that is not quite the right term. These are people, not subjects. They are his beloved compatriots and countrymen. There is no distance, no barrier between these countrymen, and Vassilev the portraitist.”

Born in 1951 in Bulgaria, Vassilev has been a professional photographer since 1983, and his work can be found in museums, institutes and private galleries around the world. He has been exhibited in 17 countries and also published one large photo book of Bulgaria’s people.

“The grand and endless expressions on their faces are so natural, so real; sometimes I wish my photographs could have smell and sound,” Vassilev states on his Web site, regarding the photos displayed there. “At least it is something that will remain for future generations. That is why I photograph a man.”

Valentina Vassilev said she and her husband often stop at coffee shops and other artistic gathering places during their travels. After a couple days in Fairhope, the Vassilevs drove their contemporary VW van to New Orleans, where they’ve been the rest of this month, she said by phone this week.

One picture might have special significance for the Vassilevs and their own life on the road.

It’s a picture of a man carrying an accordion while walking down an ancient road in Bulgaria. Like the man carrying a yoke, that man with the accordion also gave the title for his photo when asked what he was doing that day.

His comment to Vassilev became that photo’s title: “A Man is a Man When a Man is on the Road.”

For more information about Vassilev and to review a gallery of his photographs, visit his Web site at www.jackovassilevphotography.com.