I have to admit that finding any sense of creative flow over the last eight or so months has been a challenge. The summer was hot, arid, and felt long. The remnants of “pandemic brain” have slowly started to recede as I find I have things to look forward to once again. As the world seems to surge back to activity. As my COVID vaccine does its job, allowing me to be in a world to some extent.
A short visit to my weekly local farmers market. An exploration of tone.
An early heatwave hit Southern California and for some reason I thought it a good idea to hit the desert for a weekend in Palm Springs at a friend’s house. This is normally calm, relaxing, and fun with plenty of libations flowing by a cool pool.
It was somewhat challenging this time around. The temperatures lingered around 116 degrees all day. It was so hot, the pool water resembled a lukewarm bath. My friend lightly burned his bare feet on the hot patio, and we even had a few power outages.
Still, as pandemic worries slow down steadily, and as the world starts or reopen, it was nice to walk around (yes, in hot noon sun) with the Leica TL2 taking in bars full of chattering patrons under the palms of Palm Springs.
It’s mid-March and I’m reading one piece after another about being a year into this pandemic, at least in the US. Much of these sound familiar. The brain fog, the struggling with meaninglessness. Me, I often feel like I want to be a go-with-the-flow guy–to take these prolonged months as they come and try to make the most of them–except the flow often doesn’t really want to go with me.
A break in the rain
Small moments of chaos break out. Our elderly dogs eliminate on the floor. Water leaks under the sink. I’ve become excellent at clearing decades of clutter Marie Kondo-style into donation boxes, only to have to drive all over town looking for a thrift store that’ll actually take them. (Note: thrift stores are overwhelmed with donations and are usually full by noon.) As a freelancer, any sort of work or creative project usually ends in a false start.
My complaints are little. I’m navigating much of this with enough privilege to usually keep these things to myself. So when small chaos seems to reign, there goes my flow. Any kind of flow.
A walk per day keeps the fog at bay. Just like our usual March here in SoCal, the rain has been off and on. A small break in the rain makes for a lovely iPhone shot. And maybe some hope that as more of us get vaccinated, this storm might actually break.
A Garden In The Rain (Carroll Gibbons / James Dyrenforth)
A very rainy week or so here in Southern California. One of my favorite times to take my Leica outside. Carefully, of course, as droplets are still dripping off of things.
I haven’t posted anything since last year, but feeling a sense of re-focus on creative pursuits. Pandemic life and political crises have occupied my mind almost non-stop since who knows when.
I know we aren’t in a clear space yet, but it’s nice to feel a storm has come to wash away and refresh.
Sunset over the Colorado River in Parker, Arizona.
I wish I could be dancing in the streets right now after a very tense week of election stress. I’ve always found elections to be stressful but this one, of course, nearly pushed me to the edge.
I’m at the Arizona house to de-stress. Yes, that Arizona. And here watching a very familiar sunset again over the River. These sunsets that I’ve been watching since I was a small kid.
Sun setting over a dark and troubled time. Sun rising over a new day where the work is only begin. To heal. To begin anew.
A few weeks ago I made my way up to a special place, a place I’ve thought of as home since I was 14. A place where I still return to every summer to work with a small arts non-profit (www.campbravo.org). A place that was nearly burned down by a massive wildfire.
Camp de Benneville Pines is a small UU camp located near Angelus Oaks, CA. The El Dorado Fire started in far away Yucaipa and was allegedly started by careless people setting off an explosion as part of a so-called gender reveal stunt–in a dry grassy field, during a record heat wave.
The wildfire raged into the hillside directly above camp, but the camp itself was spared. Thanks to many hardworking firefighters who skillfully fought the blaze even as it entered camp in some spots. The very thought of this special place burning down due to such carelessness was enough to have me spiraling.
Reading that they were seeking local volunteers, I drove up there to donate some photography hopefully to help illustrate just how bad the damage is, and how badly this tiny camp needs extra support in order to stay afloat during such impossible times. The camp executive director took me up the hillside to the fire damage is. Where once was a beautiful, lush forest hillside now stands an ashen waste land.
Thankfully, there are some trees still standing. But the destruction this fire wreaked spans tens of thousands of acres.
Growing up in SoCal, I knew about earthquakes of course. I knew about fire season. It’s only been in the last 10 or 15 years that fire season has become something else entirely. Months on end of endlessly destructive wildfires, apocalyptic skies, and terrible air quality.
My hope is that a few of the snapshots show just how badly we need to address our current climate crisis and its effects. In the meantime, if you would consider visiting the website for Camp de Benneville Pines and supporting them with a small donation. On top of being a small business having to navigate being shut down all year, they are now having to manage soil erosion and mudslide risk.
A happy cabin and tall trees spared from any fire damage.
All images are Copyrighted by Matt Lara (Matt Lara Photography) and may not be reproduced without permission.
I have a family history of being stuck in travel destinations. I’ve been trying to make my way home from my family home out in the desert of Arizona. A small river house on the Colorado River.
High gusts of wind for two days have made that imposssible. Not that I wanted to drive home to smoked hellscape that is the ever-intensifying Fire season of Southern California.
I’ve had one last decent evening in the desert. The temperature dropped reasonably below 118 degrees, and the winds calmed. I saw the sunset into the smoky West…a few minutes sooner, it seems, than the previous night.
It’s happening now. That short crawl towards standard time. That change in hour that I despise each year. I can’t think of anyone who actually enjoys the shorter days. The only good thing about it is the slanted, surreal light of the Southwest creating shadows that don’t exist anywhere else.
A Shadow on the Beach in Arizona Trying my hand at Tri-X 400 film shooting for the first time.
Most of my photography began with taking street photos. I had just moved to NYC and had a small point and shoot camera, this was long before smart phones.
Copyright Matt Lara Photography
My stepdad, also a photographer, saw some snapshots I’d emailed him and insisted I keep shooting, and eventually gave me a hand-me-down DSLR.
The pandemic hit right as several years of my photography work with clients was starting to pay off. I’d spent a long time building a decent portfolio of work doing corporate events and portraits, and wasn’t doing much street photo work.
Copyright Matt Lara Photography
Like many freelance artists, I struggled with what to do as I faced an entire half of my year of canceled shoots and plans down the drain.
I have a few cameras I shoot with now, some that I’ve inherited. One being a Leica Q, which I’ve been taking out as often as I can during an intense summer of heat and California wildfires.
Copyright Matt Lara Photography
Safety is, of course, my priority. And while pandemic fatigue sets in and people on social media are posting group events forgoing masks or social distancing, I think people are still home and lonely. Loneliness isn’t exactly a bad thing to me. I hope I can convey that in these shots.
The statue seen here is title “ghandiG” by Peter Shelton, on the campus of Pomona College. All images Copyright Matt Lara Photography 2020
