Commercial Work
Personal Projects
Commercial Work
Personal Projects
WINDSHIELD DIARIES
Personal ProjectPP
This series captures California’s forgotten landscapes, where empty spaces and desolate scenes reveal the beauty of decay. Places that have slipped from society’s grasp, showcasing their stories etched in old patina and timeworn details. Most of these stills were shot in and around the California desert. I drive out there from Los Angeles almost every week. Towns like Barstow, Palm Springs, and Lancaster — I know their streets by heart. People out there are quiet, unassuming, just going about their lives... something that I really gravitate towards.
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These towns sit in some of the most unforgiving land on earth. Local authorities warn against driving out there alone unless you’ve packed emergency supplies — if something breaks down, you could be stranded for days, maybe even weeks, with no sign of civilization for miles. I started wondering why people chose to live here, so I did some digging into the history of these towns. Turns out, the California desert has always attracted a certain kind of person: miners, dreamers, and wanderers chasing something just out of reach.
After the California Gold Rush faded, prospectors pushed into the Mojave in search of silver, borax, and whatever else might glint in the dust. By the mid-1900s, the desert became a testing ground for flight and speed — Edwards Air Force Base, just outside Lancaster, is where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier... In a poetic way, a reminder that this land has always drawn those looking to go further than the rest.
In the decades that followed, the government encouraged people to settle here through the Small Tract Act, offering cheap plots to anyone willing to build a cabin and try their luck. Many of those small wooden shacks still stand today, sunburned and half-collapsed — quiet relics of a short-lived dream of self-sufficiency. Today, the desert attracts a different kind of crowd. Some come because it’s cheaper than the coast, others for the silence, the space, the light. Artists, families, loners — all carving out their own place between old gas stations and new subdivisions.
I drive out here a few times a month, mostly to give myself space to think — to physically get away from the noise and distractions of Los Angeles. But I often end up bringing work along, too. Over the years, this landscape has become the backdrop for many of my commercial projects, blending work and escape into the same dusty horizon. And, well… the star-filled sky at night doesn’t hurt either :-)
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