ADVENTURE JOURNAL: JOSHUA TREE

Sometime last summer, over takeout on a warm evening in a Toronto backyard, Lindsay Duncan and I started talking about how rad it would be to go on a photo adventure - together. This might not sound revolutionary, but it felt like a big idea for two shooters who are used to working and travelling solo. We talked about learning from each other, exchanging techniques, working in different conditions and more but were both bogged down with client work, so we put a pin in it. Fast forward to 2023, I don’t know exactly when because it was that window of time where the winter months and blahs melt together in a long stretch of grey, a text from LD asking if I wanted to meet her in California shook the SADs right out of me. A couple of months later, my bags were packed and I took off from YHZ for LAX.

Landing in LAX was anticlimactic, so much so that I didn’t even take out my camera, ngl. The skies were grey and the temps were cooler than what I had left behind on the East Coast (shout out climate change). Picking up our rental car went from complete chaos to real-life movie vignette when the parking lot attendant gave us the keys to a convertible Jeep with a smile and a “You want a free upgrade? Go on, get outta here”. She didn’t have to tell us twice. A few stops later with an honourable mention to Shake Shack’s orange cramsicle shake, we were on the highway, headed to the desert. As we drove into the sunset, the heavy LA clouds started to lift.

The sun had long since set when we checked into our Airbnb located on Old Lady Springs Rd., somewhere between Pioneertown and Yucca Valley, so waking up felt like being teleported to the surface of another planet. Stepping outside brought Joshua Trees, tumbleweeds, lizards and the hot desert sun. Although the plans had initially been to jump right into hiking, we ended up spending a day on the Airbnb; drinking, snacking, napping and shooting at random. Off-roading in the desert was the perfect sunset session before going to bed early to catch sunrise at Joshua Tree National Park.

4:30AM. An alarm goes off. Hitting snooze is tempting but sunrise calls. Not entirely awake, no morning people on site, we stumbled around the Airbnb. Coffee? Check. Cameras? Check. Keys? Check. Maps? Check. More coffee? Check. Everything gets piled into the Jeep and I am thankful, not for the first or last time, about our upgrade because not having to play Tetris in a tight space with full camera bags in the dark of night is a blessing. The map shows an hour and a half drive. LD drove the day before so I’m in the driver’s seat and I appreciate it. It gives my brain a chance to warm up plus the Jeep handles like a dream. Arriving at blue hour, we’re the only car on the lot. Walking through silhouetted Joshua Trees and rocky outcrops is surreal. As the sun rises, the landscape only gets more alien, rocks glowing red with some desert equivalent of alpenglow, contrasted against the brightening blue sky. Somehow, the whole morning passes on what was listed as a 1-hour loop. We only see one other person, a rock climber, high above the formations I was scrambling on. Note to self, I write in my Moleskine, come back with more time to climb.

Back at the ranch, we share files while watching 90s films on VHS. Sunrise is no joke. Travelling with company makes me realize how much I overextend myself when I travel alone. It’s rare for me to miss a sunrise on the road, which means that a full night’s sleep is never on the table. I have a heavy bias towards morning light but instead of chasing a second sunrise, we play with harsher daylight outside of our place and capture some love letters to the Jeep in the form of windstorm portraits.

A day later and rested up, it’s back to Joshua Tree, this time for a sunset hike. A line of cars pulled over on the road signal something special and sure enough, a herd of desert bighorn sheep are visible in the distance. I scramble to switch over to my 70-200mm lens and manage to catch a few sheep butts before they tire of their captive human audience. From there, we’re only a few minutes away from Skull Rock trail. The skull rock is visible from the road but my brain hyper-fixates on the infinite number of bouldering options. No iconic skull rock photo makes it onto my SD card. Next time. As I start climbing the first, biggest boulder I see, LD worries outloud about safety while a family of hikers congratulates me on a little climb. Perched up high, I nab a shot of LD in the distance, framing up her own views. It’s one of my favourite shots of the trip for showing the scope and scale of the landscape.

For the rest of the afternoon, I’m focused on climbing. It feels like rock scrambling as a kid back home but on steroids. Used to relying on my tripod, I get comfy with passing my camera off to LD. Although I have a bit of lingering fomo about not shooting more landscapes, the images of me climbing are more of the moment than any self-portrait I could capture and I’m grateful to have visual evidence of those memories. Letting go of ego and learning to be a subject, not always a shooter, was a huge lesson for me this trip. LD put it best when she described our week as “a special push-pull of two people who are used to going it alone”. With only a few moments of daylight left, we packed up to make an impulse stop at Jumbo Rocks Campground which didn’t disappoint on a naming basis. After capturing LD in her yogi element on an extra jumbo rock, we agree to put our cameras away. The last few moments of our last desert sunset together are spent being present instead of pushing to get one more frame. We stop for drinks on our way back to the Airbnb. I’m already dreaming about coming back.

Pro-tip: If you ‘re shooting for experience but aren’t sure where to start, having branded product to capture can be a helpful jumping-off point. We were kindly gifted clothing from Struck Apparel and 18 Waits. Whenever the light was hitting but we didn’t know exactly what to capture, we went back to capturing the pieces in the landscape. Some of my favourite frames of mine and LD’s are detail shots of the product we brought with us.

A note on images: Lindsay and I were working collaboratively on this trip, constantly swapping cameras, direction and ideas. All images in this post are edited by me. Right-click on an image to open it in a new tab and you’ll see file names either starting with _F1A or ACP. For the most part, F1A files were captured by LD, while ACP files were captured by me.