neonconflagrations

So absolutely stoked to for everyone who made the trip out to join us for the weekend!! . I can’t express how much of a high the entire weekend felt like and there’s too little space here for me to thank everyone who contributed to make it go off so flawlessly. . But from both of us, thank you all for being a presence in our lives at whatever point and to whatever degree. One of the best fucking nights in memory, and now, a few weeks later, it feels like I finally might be caught up on sleep… . 📸: @psmithersphotography

. Along the Colorado River floodplain are the only known geoglyphs in North America with human figures. Inscribed into the ground and estimated to be over a thousand years old, these Native American artworks are so large that they remained unseen, or at least unrecorded, until the 1930s when a pilot was flying over what was mostly a vast uninhabited landscape at that time. . It’s not known what they represent - one idea is that they are representations of mythic characters or that they marked ceremonial grounds. The human figures here are about 170’ tall, carved into a landscape that averages temperatures over 105 degrees throughout the summer months. . A dirt road passes near them, not even that far from a paved two lane road, but during the time that I was there I didn’t see another person.

. marked safe from another close encounter with my stalker… . what a creep… 🙄 . #iswearidontlovethedramaitlovesme

. Every now and then I have a set of pictures I tell myself I’ll post on here, and then things like publishing agreements delay me being able to post them until after some story runs somewhere else. And by the time that story gets around to print, I’ve completely forgotten about the old pictures which have been buried on a hard drive by that point anyway… . This neighborhood is near the edge of the Mojave Desert, where a migrating sand dune has completely buried several homes along the fringes of the Mojave River. . Part of my research for this piece turned up people who continued to live there, building retaining walls to fight back the sand, but talking about how grains of sand would find their way into every crevice of their homes, saying that even just sitting and watching TV, they would need to dust the sand off when they would get up afterwards. . This is a few of the images of the sand having completely taken over after people were forced to finally abandon their homes and walk away from their properties.

. Hey friends! . [TL;DR - I’m starting a record label!] . I’m breaking my ig abstinence to show y’all what I’ve been working on lately! Excited to announce that I’ve been working with some artists who have put out some of my favorite recordings lately to bring these albums to life in vinyl format! . Kicking everything off today with preorders for Loviet’s chill-inducing ‘777’ album going live! Since I first heard it, the mix of 80s-ish synths and indie rock combined with lyrics that throwback to the way that all those small teenage details and aimless nights get loaded with so much fucking gravity and emotion in a way that age tends to dull, I’ve had it on repeat. . @lovietmusic ‘s attitude and stoke for 90’s pop and hardworking musical hunger made it feel like the perfect first partnership for this new project. So if you’d like to keep up with this new vinyl record label, head over to GhostStateRecords.com, or give the @ghoststaterecords instagram page a follow. . And absolutely do yourself a favor and fall in love with Loviet’s music! Streaming everywhere, however @lovietmusic makes a perfect place to start out! . 📷: @bystephm

. freezing cold - i think the car thermometer said 29 degrees and the steam from the warm springs looked completely surreal - sunrise swim at the edge of the Great Salt Lake after spending a few days driving dirt roads up mountain passes seemingly miles from anywhere. . I’ve been threatening for years now to move to this corner of Nevada since Reno isn’t the trashy forgotten place that it used to be anymore… . Also just realizing I threw up fewer ig posts in 2021 than there are months in the year. I consider that a win!

. Spent a few days riding, climbing, and paddling around the mountains and canyons of Avalon. This place has always been particularly special to me as a small island spot trapped in a past heyday just off the coast of Southern California where I grew up. Over the years I’ve hiked to the peaks of several of its mountains, raced my bike from the private security force that still controls the island’s interior, celebrated special occasions with helicopter rides and jet ski trips between the island and the mainland, and sat at a distance just observing the bison herds that still wander throughout the island’s interior - a strange and surreal result of some movie that was filmed here decades ago. . Although it’s trying to keep up with tourism, if you look you can still see its glamour stuck in the past in many places. . We spent one evening paddling around the clear waters of Avalon Harbor - waiting for the sunset to color the skies over the mountains that encapsulate the town and then the city lights to glow on the water. And after the past couple years of not having a chance to travel together, with messy hair and legs dangling in the autumn sea, the island has one more reason to stand out to me… . Thanks for the photo assist to the couple on their boat who didn’t really know how to use a camera that doesn’t make phone calls for capturing our first moments afterwards…

. My friends all know that my dream job for years now has been to ghostwrite celebutante autobiographies. I’m also a sucker for trashy magazines like Us Weekly. . On one occasion, I was introduced to someone who worked for Us Weekly. When I asked if I could embellish my resumé and get a job with the tabloid from my home in Reno, she asked me if I was willing to move to Los Angeles or New York. I gave an ecstatic thumbs down to both. . Well years later, it continues to amuse me to no end that these days my photos regularly appear in tabloids worldwide. . The photos above are from my visit a couple months ago to the ruins of Kauai’s Coco Palms Resort, a contentious cultural site in the town of Wailua (although the articles written for the images usually touch less on that and more on the fact that Elvis slept there…) . As for Reno, a few years ago I was hired by Us Weekly to report on some third rate celeb making an appearance at one of the city’s casino nightclubs. . The moral of it all is that dreams can come true, and also that somehow Us Weekly sells enough of their awful magazines to give their writers $100+ bar tabs in addition to their writers’ fees… (and a shoutout to @hollyintransit who drank most of mine) . #travelhawaii

. A midnight hike up to this mine that sits atop a mountain. . This one was once the largest gold producing mine in California. When the price of gold was frozen by presidential order, the costs of inflation and modernization would rise and make mining operations unprofitable, leading the mine to close. It would be kept by a lone person who continued to live at the mine and maintain everything in working condition so that operations could be started again at the turn of a key if the price of gold were to become unrestricted. . It’s interesting, walking up the forested trail now in the darkness, how the mind can turn sounds of trickling water or old mine siding blowing in the wind into sounding almost human. Like ghosts hidden somewhere nearby. Funnily enough, it comes at a time where ghosts would seem a much more realistic explanation than the reality of certain situations I’ve stumbled into recently. . Half of the structure seems to have fallen a little more into the widening vertical shaft opening it stands on top of each time I visit. The other half you can still climb through if you’re willing to inhale the mercury dust that coats everything inside of it. But as a friend once said while at a bonfire beside a polluted shipwreck site, Superfund equals super FUN!...

. In one of my favorite desolate corners of the state is the abandoned hotel and brothel where Edward Abbey would spend his days at the bar working on the writings that would become his book Desert Solitaire while on break as a school bus driver in Death Valley. . The hotel once had a swimming pool, golf course and landing strip before it ultimately closed down because it was too remote (the county began refusing to send their doctors there in order for the working girls to receive their mandatory exams). . It took me multiple tries to find and make it there the first time, and I learned the hard way the area is over a mile from any public road and completely saturated by the natural springs surrounding it. . Also, first night shoot with a new camera and I’m blown away by these pictures taken in near total darkness on a cloudy night.

. I usually don’t like posting things on here after the fact. And combined with me usually not wanting to pay attention to my phone when cool things are happening, it just means that posting anything here tends to fall by the wayside altogether. I’m giving this one a pass just because that water temperature was probably not too far off that day this past summer than what it is now. . I spent all afternoon hiking up to this glacier at the edge of Yosemite, and couldn’t not do this before I left. . Only in the water for a few seconds, definitely not long enough for my cheeks to match that sweet tone of my legs. But I’m excited to say that with winter these days, everything is matching up nicely again, and it’s not far off from the pallor of that glacier in the background there... . #alittlephotoshoptomakeitigfriendly

. So every now and then I look at this app and realize it’s been months since I posted anything. With everything that’s happened over the past few months, my introverted self has absolutely thrived! No pressure for social situations, mistaking more time for the ability to accomplish the overwhelming number of new projects started, travel limited mostly to extended periods heading down the most rural and empty dirt roads or sneaking into areas that normally have more of a security presence... it’s been awesome! But every now and then I think maybe I should let all my friends on here know I’m not dead. And at times lately I’ve seriously found myself slacking on keeping in touch with people in lieu of my favored method of texting at an ungodly hour from the car to let them know I’m passing through their town and to get ready quick! So with new year’s rolling through, I’m telling myself I’m going to try to be better at this virtual friendship stuff since the pandemic makes impromptu meetings somewhat of a discouraged deadly risk. To all my friends on here, I swear I’ll try to respond to messages and texts, and you’re all welcome to come sit in our yard and eat burritos, drink frescas and do flips on the trampoline since we’ve still never had an actual housewarming party. Everyone have a great New Years (which I’m posting today before I kill the phone and head somewhere far from cel service for the next couple days). See y’all a little more frequently on the other side...