A few years back, my friends found a steamer trunk filled with old photos next to a trash can in Baltimore. I obsessively scanned everything in it. I only started uploading them to my flickr last night though. Lots of strange portraits!

Two weeks later and I’m in the opposite corner of the country. On one of the coldest days of the year, my friend and I left Ithaca, NY to go to Taughannock Falls on Cayuga Lake. Okay, it wasn’t very far away. But it was beautiful.

The desert called and I returned to Slab City. This time, I filled my car up with punx and we went to “the mud pots”, a geothermal spot with bubbling clay. It wasn’t long before most of us were covered with hot clay. Then we stopped at what I got told was an abandoned whorehouse before driving back to Slab City to shoot pellet guns and shave Matt’s head.

Occupy Santa Cruz, in San Lorenzo park, was told that everyone had to clear out by 5 or 6 on December 7th. I showed up to support in case the police came in to arrest people. But of course, as per usual with the occupy movement, the police waited until the early hours of the next morning to evict so that supporters and media weren’t on hand to document their tactics.

It was a sad site to see the camp being dismantled, but to be honest I’d expected it weeks or months earlier.

A few more photos after the cut:

There’s been this gross dead corner lot in Santa Cruz for the past however many years, one decorated only by mulch and drug paraphernalia. So last weekend people turned it into a small park, to the immediate joy of other folks in the neighborhood. But a new Walgreens is being constructed nearby, and apparently they’re not so happy with it, so they bulldozed it. They were going to do it yesterday, but 30-40 people showed up to protect the space, so they left it alone. At 8 this morning, they came in, fenced in the people using the park, then called the cops on them. After the people were kicked out, they brought in a bulldozer. Some people stood in front of the bulldozer for awhile, and I guess someone put mulch in the exhaust. Cops came again, drove everyone away, then a repair truck showed up and they bulldozed the park. So now, once again, the corner is a bunch of dirt. Thanks, Walgreens. Glad to know that you’re not some just faceless chainstore that doesn’t pay attention to its local community.

More photos after the jump:

I went up the 1 with some friends at the lowest tide of the year to play on the beach, explore sea caves, and pick mussels. Well, I didn’t pick mussels really, but my omnivorous friends did. Anyhow, we got there an hour or so before the sun went down and the light stayed perfect the entire time we were there. These are some of my favorite photos I’ve taken in awhile.

I went down to Big Sur to get out of town for a few days. We camped near the ocean and then clambered down to Jade Cove. We picked through pebbles looking for jade. Me and all my clothes got soaked. An airship went by. Ergo, a perfect day.

On the morning of 11-11-11 I woke up a bit late to the “oh crap cops are arresting people” text and made it down to the occupation after the police had left. But dawn was upon us so I went ahead and photographed the occupation in the morning twilight.

On Wednesday I went out with two of my friends (one of whom is a dog, the other a human) to see the redwoods in Felton, California. Was just what I needed.

The Salton Sea is bizarre. It’s so bizarre that the documentary about it is narrated by John Waters. I didn’t get to explore any of the abandoned towns nearby (well, unless Niland and Slab City count…) but we stopped by the bird sanctuary on the shore. The shore is made out of dead fish and barnacles.

One of the photos is actually of San Diego.