I am digging into my film archives lately & rediscovering some wonderful images that I have not seen in a long time. I am surprised by how the texture of film is really so different than digital–and how much a I have missed grain & didn’t know it. I’ve been seduced by the clarity of countless pixels, feeling them to be clean like a shower after many days of camping. But I love grain the way you love being dirty & sweaty those first days before the shower–luxuriating in the texture that is your skin + nature.

Max & I wandered off the road into the sand dunes some years ago in the desert outside of Las Vegas. It was a scorching hot day, but the sand beckoned us to walk & walk & walk…and feeling it on my skin when I laid down on it felt really sensuous–like the earth massaging me with her warm hands.

After a bit of shooting & exploring, we found out upon trying to leave that our car was bottomed out in the sand. After a few earnest but futile attempts to escape, we followed the sound of ATVs signaling a human presence that might help us. We trekked toward it & found an RV parked in the middle of nowhere on the dunes. Answering our knock at the door, a man emerged looking quite baked by the sun (& likely by other substances), no doubt having been camped & having an ATV-driving brand of fun for more than a couple days. But as disheveled as they were, he & his friends (likewise baked) pulled our Ford Focus out of the sand, chained to their muscle pick-up. Thank God.

But before our detour, Max & I shot some images of the desert & some figure studies. Here are some of mine. I think Max’s of me are much more interesting…but then again, I took off a lot more clothes than he did…