death valley

november 2019.

“the world does not deliver meaning to you. you have to make it meaningful… and decide what you want and need and must do.” - zadie smith 

it was sometime in mid to late november when i mentioned the idea of a quick trip to death valley to my good friend, tenley. i had been trying to make the trek out there for years, but the window of recommended time to visit is small (for obvious reasons - hottest place on earth baby!) and i was usually swamped with work right around the ideal time (september - november) to go.

i was really just itching to check it out - i had never been. i wanted to loosely plan out some shoot ideas but was mostly just intrigued by the place and desperately needed to get out of LA. i was in a horrible place mentally and need a mini reset. 

so, i picked up tenley at about 10 pm on a wednesday night, and we got on the road. 

if you know me, you know i love driving. like. love love love love. i also typically prefer night driving. it’s like free therapy and adrenaline, all compact and surrounded by a great sound system and a plethora of snacks and various naturally energizing drinks. as long as i have snacks, tracks, podcasts, don’t need to pee, and am as far away from LA as possible - we’re good. 

so anyways. it was a journey. it was also below freezing. we finally get to death valley at about 3 am - which wasn’t the original plan but honestly when do things ever go as planned? it was cold as shit (expected but also shocking when you’re actually experiencing it) we pull into a spot, park the car, lay the seats back, and attempt to get about 45 mins of sleep before heading to the sand dunes for sun rise. 

which results in us deliriously giggling for about 42 minutes, then sleeping for 3. 

so. 

we get back on the road and head to watch the new day begin, from the mesquite flat sand dunes.

i / we honestly had no game plan, other then throw down yerba mate’s, trader joe’s knock off version of takis (i’m forgetting the name but they are SO good. hot pink bag. mix those w that garlic aioli dip they have and boom. trust me.) so yeah. mate and fake taki’s (breakfast of champions) as we gather our things and start trekking towards the sand dunes.

few things come to mind while doing this. 

1. you absolutely can not see or hear shit because it’s absolutely pitch black and it’s absolutely insanely windy. 

2. i’m an idiot because i’m wearing jeans 3 sizes too big for me, without a belt. i am also wearing shoes 2 sizes too big for me. all while carrying 3 bags and trudging through sand for about 20+ minutes. 

3. i need to pee. bad. 

on a positive: 

1. we simply hadn’t stopped laughing in about the 8 hours we had been together. tenley and i had previously met at a festival we were both working in costa rica a few months before, and had rapidly become close after. finding all the parallels and sharing all the stories mixed with the excitement of exploring a new place? sounds like the perfect mix to me. 

2. the sun was starting to come up and from what i could see, i was in absolute awe. sand dunes stretching as far as i could see - everything had that early morning, blue-ish haze and i was stunned by it all. watching the sun rise in a place you’ve never seen in the day light has gotta be one of the most exciting, trippiest feelings ever. 

3. it felt like we had the whole world to ourselves. truly. it was amazing. 

 we spent the first few hours of our day drifting and floating and rolling and laying and creating in the dunes, and as the sun rose, the colors in the sky and sand just kept shifting and morphing from cool to warm tones and it was such a beautiful thing to witness, honestly.

we spent the rest of the day boppin around and pulling over whenever we saw something that interested us. we only planned on being there until a little after sunset - it was a quick trip, but it was the perfect amount of time honestly. 

one spot that really stood out to me was zabriskie’s point. it’s a collection of all these massive, multicolored mounds, jutting out of the ground. known for its erosional landscape, it’s made up of the remains and sediment from furnace creek lake, which dried up about 5 million yrs ago. 

we decided to wrap up our day at badwater basin - an endorheic basin noted as the lowest point in north america, with a depth of 282 ft below sea level.

this was the highlight for the both of us. 

it’s such a trippy landscape, honestly. it’s covered in salt flats, and mixed with the fact that it was golden hour - it was the perfect blend of ethereal and eerie. highly recommend checking out badwater at some point in life if you can. well, check out of all death valley i mean. but badwater basin definitely stood out to me.

and for me personally, as a creative - it’s like the perfect blank canvas.

you have everything & nothing to work with, and that’s my favorite part.  

there’s just something about the openness - the freedom that you feel when you look out, as far as the eye can see - and it’s just sky, and earth, and you. 

we shot through sunset, stocked up on snacks, and hit the road. 

i know this story might seem pretty anticlimactic and as i read it over, i laugh but honestly, i always enjoy reading the story behind imagery and when i look back through the photographs i captured and the stillness that they portray, i just crack up thinking about the actual hilarity of the situation and the good conversation and the delirious car banter and all the little moments in between that helped create some of my favorite photographs to date with one of my absolute favorite humans, ever. 

thank you tenley for being such a down ass bitch, i had the absolute time of my life and i love you to pieces.

but you already knew that. 

and if you’re thinking about going, shoot me a message! super happy to help with any questions you might have. 

<3 more photos from our day / dramatic 24 hr excursion below :)