Desert BlooM
A photographic journey through the American Southwest
This album was shot at the tail end of 2021, but the story begins a few years earlier. After losing my job, I was offered $50/day to join a small team out west creating a travel website. I flew out to Santa Barbara on a whim and started working. We rambled over sand dunes and mountain passes for a couple of weeks, documenting the remoteness of obscure little towns. We were telling the story of these places through photo and text, and publishing it as we went. I didn't really know what I was doing at the time, but I felt I had an underlying instinct for whatever it was. When I got home, I had a vision for entirely new career path laid out in front of me. And so I began freelancing as a photographer and graphic designer.
In late 2021, with travel still largely restricted by Covid, I engineered a new roadtrip through the west. This time I knew my way around the camera and I intended to do the scenery justice. I saddled a rooftop tent to my car and enlisted two co-pilots. Ultra-adventurist Uncle Dave—stateside at the time from Barcelona—would join me for the journey west. At LAX, my girlfriend Ani would tag in, and we'd make our way back home. A Desert Bloom is a climatic phenomenon where the vegetation of a dry, dormant landscape comes alive after a period of rain. Like one of these blooms, this photo journal represents both a personal creative rebirth, and a rejuvenated spirit following the Covid years.
Saturday Oct. 30th, 2021 | Day 1
8 hours through the rain from Boston to Pittsburgh.
The drive-through states.
Into that good night.
Nov. 1st, 2021 | Day 3
Somewhere in Kansas.
Gas mileage dwindles over hundreds of miles of slight incline across the plains.
We reached Colorado by sunset, and everything turned to liquid gold.
Nov. 2nd, 2021 | Day 4
Moab, Utah. A lush valley town surrounded by red desert.
Arches National Park.
Delicate Arch.
Rock formation that inspired the title.
The La Sal Mountain range.
Nov. 3rd, 2021 | Day 5
Canyonlands National Park.
Dead Horse Point state park.
Nov. 4th, 2021 | Day 6
South through Monument Valley en route to Page, Arizona.
The angle.
The shot.
Nov. 5th, 2021 | Day 7
Accidentally waking up to a giant balloon fiesta.
Lift.
Taken by the wind.
Gravity.
Horseshoe Bend.
Nov. 6th, 2021 | Day 8
Detour: 4 hours off course.
Bryce Canyon National Park.
Nov. 6th, 2021 | Day 9
Late arrival to our 5 million-star hotel.
Zion National Park.
Beginning the hike up Angel's Landing.
The resulting view.
Court of the Patriarchs.
The Watchman.
Nov. 8th, 2021 | Day 10
Nevada. Just passing through.
Non-politically correct motel.
Nov. 10th, 2021 | Day 12
Cheap motel pools and potent cocktails in Palm Springs.
Relaxation station. The "vacation" portion of the trip.
Twin Palms. The Sinatra Residence.
Moonrise over the Mojave desert with Palm Springs lit up.
Nov. 13th, 2021 | Day 15
Joshua Tree by moonlight
Skull Rock
Cholla Cactus Garden
Orange soda.
Heading back east through Amboy, CA. Population, 4.
Nov. 14th, 2021 | Day 16
The Grand Canyon. 5:28 am. Elevation 10,000'. 28 Degrees.
The reverse view from the canyon rim.
Nov. 16th, 2021 | Day 18
Wide open New Mexico
Nov. 17th, 2021 | Day 19
There's East Texas. West Texas. And then there's the Far West.
We found in Marfa what we had gone looking for in Roswell. A rusty bohemian hideout with a mysterious twist. The "Marfa Lights" are a potentially extraterrestrial set of glowing orbs out in the Chihuahuan desert. They add an appropriate sense of weirdness to the town's existing personality. It's a fun story, even if they just turned out to be an atmospheric refraction of headlights on a distant highway.
Isolated.
Nov. 19th, 2021 | Day 21
7 hours across Texas from Marfa to Austin.
Quite the combination.
Nov. 26th, 2021 | Day 28
A full day's drive from Austin. The final night.
Nov. 27th, 2021 | Day 29-30 | Saturday into Sunday
Home is where I want to be.
After a month on the road, I woke up on a couch in New Orleans, sluggish and hungover. I'd just completed another trip around the sun, to cap off the roadtrip of a lifetime. I reflected on the wanderlust I felt years before, stuck without a job, freelancing to make a few bucks through a bluey screen. There were limited resources and no directions back then.
I sat in my car surrounded by the thick humid air of the Garden District, with many miles in front of me to get home. For the first time in a long time I really wanted to close that gap. I decided to drive as far as I could in one shot. For entertainment, I tuned my radio dial to the local football games as I skimmed around the towns of the SEC. I stopped for gas near Starkville. Ate Chik-fil-a in Tuscaloosa. By nightfall, I hit an orange-drenched Knoxville after a game let out. And I still had 13 hours to go. I picked up some more coffee and continued on, but no amount of caffeine can stop the metronome of painted white lines flashing across your pupils in the completely black night. Eventually, I caught a glimpse of morning light somewhere over the Appalachians. Finally, just short of 9am, I got a whiff of that familiar industrial smell of the Meadowlands and crossed into New York. When I saw a sign for Providence, one hour to go.. On Sunday around noon, I pulled into my parents house and dove onto the couch and slept. For now, I was right where I needed to be.
