Borrego Springs, California
The Desert in the Day

On solo mission now, a trip to the dark sky desert. Arriving with plenty of blazing sun, I captured the remote landscape… inhabited by enormous sculpture by artist Ricardo Breceda. Borrego Springs is a magical place where one can easily get a soy latte but also be in the middle of primitive badlands. A quickish drive from the Los Angeles area, by way of Santa Ana and all its vegan goodies (more on that in another post), I want to return soon for an extended stay. In the mean time, some sites from the day.

The Borrego Springs serpent weaves in and out of the dry landscape

Just me

But now within these metal creatures again

Perfection in landscape

Ok, flash forward to sunset the next day. My cabin had no linens and no electricity. I slept on a wooden slat and woke up shivering. So then I slept in my car for a few hours, waking up to turn the heat on and off. You need a night like this to break you into the wilderness. I don’t complain; I feel blessed. When the sun came up, I went to photograph the animals at dawn like a proper photographer.

The sun paints its picture

Note for next visit: get a 4WD vehicle so I can explore more. My low-riding Kia Soul (Sol?) could barely survive the worn pathways around these sculptures.

An attack!

On the way back towards Los Angeles I stopped into the artist’s open air gallery to see a ton more of his huge metal creatures

With that, back to LA… kind of unfortunately. I really wished I had more time in the remote desert. Especially now that I see, back in Brooklyn, that there were vegan options I missed!