photography
untitled (ghosts) self portrait series, 2019.
I’m skin
& bone
& maybe
more.
maybe—
I wanted to be born.
maybe—
I wanted to be a ghost?
becoming
is slow like
weeds pushing
up through
cement.
but sometimes—
I wear my skin
as a costume.
I spent the morning a few days ago wandering the California Poppy Reserve, despite almost 35 mile per hour winds! The superbloom happening in Southern California right now, however, was more than worth the chapped lips & wind-whipped hair.
Put together a short video (of very wobbly windy footage) of my explorations. Look for more photos & videos from this gorgeous adventure on my instagram in the coming weeks.
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The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, California is home to the most consistent blooming of the state's flower, the California poppy. The department of California State Parks does not water or stimulate the flowers in any way, instead leaving the blooms in their strictly natural state. It is against state law to remove flowers from the site & veering off the established paths can result in a hefty ticket. The traditional blooming season for California Poppies is mid-February through mid-May.
The so-called "superbloom" of 2019 was caused by an increase in rainfall during the winter months in Southern California. Parking on-site at the reserve, which is currently open 7:00am-7:00pm, is $10 per passenger vehicle, or you can opt to park on the shoulder of the road for free, provided you are at least 100 feet away from the park's entrance.
questions:
-how does the body work?
-what does the body hold together within & without itself?
-what does the body hold?
-where in the body is the ‘self’ located?
further study:
-how can language or thought interact with the physical body?
-how does the body need language in order to exist?
s y m b i o s i s
Read Morethe fire burns against the water
the fire burns against the sea.
I wake in hills surrounded by kindling
I wake in california breeze.
mecca california is an unincorporated community along the north shore of the salton sea in southern california's colorado desert. the sea & the surrounding settlements are almost directly on top of the famed san andreas fault.
the area surrounding the salton sea had a short life as a resort town in the 1950's, but the ever-increasing pollution of the lake all but ended tourism in the area. the sea is now surrounded by the sun bleached corpses of fish & water birds poisoned by its toxic waters, as well as the remains of shops, resorts, & motels either totally abandoned or repurposed by the community's handful of current residents.
travel diary:
in the summer sun, people are out on the streets of paris. not just tourists, but locals who, for whatever reason, didn't leave the city for the nationwide august holidays. the markets & cafes are busy despite the heat & the otherwise empty city chatters with french, english, italian, german, & spanish.
diary:
sitting on the manicured sand of balboa beach in orange country, watching the fat red sun sink behind palm trees & multi-million dollar homes. a lone lifeguard stand sits empty, dusk crawling in around it.
My friend Megan made this amazing dress out of tossed away items from her recycling bin. On Saturday we set off to downtown LA to stage a fashion photoshoot to capture the dress in all its glory. We explored some of dtla's coolest locations, from the Biltmore Hotel to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Megan's dress is made of paper shopping bags, old CDs, binder clips, plastic bags, a vegetable tie, & a scrap of wrapping paper.
Spent some time last week shooting some social media content with Surfsies LA, a local surf accessory brand. Slowly building up my branded content portfolio as part of a content creation company I will be launching shortly. Stay tuned!
The long stretch of I-5 south from Oregon to Los Angeles is mostly mundane. Cities & towns of varying sizes. Truck stops. Gas stations. Fast food restaurants. Here the interstate is just a means of getting from point A to point B.
But for a chunk of time you'll criss-cross a branch of the California Aqueduct. In late summer the rolling hills are golden brown from drought. The aqueduct flows over 400 miles from the Sierra Nevada Mountains all the way down to Southern California & it is the primary feature of the California State Water Project, one of the largest public water & power utilities in the world. Construction on the aqueduct began in 1963.
Somewhere along the way I came across this vista point just before sunset. I decided to stop to see if I could capture the fat weight of the sun & its rays sinking over the California hills. This is the result.
-N
spent a couple of days last week driving up the california coast. briefly stopped in san francisco to explore. between the rolling fog, the pre-sunrise wakeup call, & the getting lost in sloped narrow streets I found some interesting plant life.
-N
walking around hollywood in the afternoon summer sun.
El Matador State Beach, February 2018
