There’s a silence in the desert that speaks louder than any city street. Out past the cracked teeth of California highways, where the road forgets your name and the sun forgets to show mercy, lies a place that feels like the edge of the world—Death Valley.
We set out to shoot for our independent clothing brand with just a 35mm camera, a trunk full of gear, and a vision steeped in grit. There’s something poetic in choosing Death Valley—a place where almost nothing survives—as the setting to breathe life into something new. And we weren’t alone. Wild burros meandered through the dunes and brush like ghostly relics from a forgotten Western, watching with dark, slow eyes as we loaded rolls of expired Kodak stock and dusted sand from our lenses.
The El Portal motel became our base. A relic in its own right, it sits just 357 miles from the myth-soaked grounds of Area 51—close enough that the air feels strange, electric with something unspoken. The place had a weathered vacancy, a kind of worn-out dignity, with doors that creaked open like secrets. Neon signs hummed against the sky, fading into the kind of blue you only see when your soul’s parched.
And God, the heat.
The sun didn’t rise—it attacked.
We shot through the melt of mid-morning and into the delirium of late afternoon. Sweat turned to salt on our skin, our boots sunk into soft ash-colored dirt, and the camera clicked like a heartbeat. Every frame captured the mood of the desert: defiant, melancholic, cinematic. Shadows pooled in the folds of worn denim. A model leaned against an abandoned gas pump, smoke curling from her cigarette like it was whispering to the dust. The wind moaned low and slow, pulling at hems and hair, making everything feel undone, like a memory that won’t stay still.
Death Valley doesn’t care about your plans. It makes its own rules. That’s what makes it perfect. Out there, your ego dies and your vision sharpens. You’re just another flicker on the film, another soul chasing beauty in a place that’s been burning forever.
When it was over, we packed up as the sun leaned low against the mountains. We drove out slow, tires crunching gravel, the heat shimmering off the pavement like ghosts rising. The desert held onto us, each mile pulling something from our bones.
In the rearview mirror, the valley melted into haze, and we realized we hadn’t just captured a campaign—we’d shot a story. A fever dream. A mirage on 35mm.
A love letter to the forgotten places where fashion doesn’t just exist—it survives.
We set out to shoot for our independent clothing brand with just a 35mm camera, a trunk full of gear, and a vision steeped in grit. There’s something poetic in choosing Death Valley—a place where almost nothing survives—as the setting to breathe life into something new. And we weren’t alone. Wild burros meandered through the dunes and brush like ghostly relics from a forgotten Western, watching with dark, slow eyes as we loaded rolls of expired Kodak stock and dusted sand from our lenses.
The El Portal motel became our base. A relic in its own right, it sits just 357 miles from the myth-soaked grounds of Area 51—close enough that the air feels strange, electric with something unspoken. The place had a weathered vacancy, a kind of worn-out dignity, with doors that creaked open like secrets. Neon signs hummed against the sky, fading into the kind of blue you only see when your soul’s parched.
And God, the heat.
The sun didn’t rise—it attacked.
We shot through the melt of mid-morning and into the delirium of late afternoon. Sweat turned to salt on our skin, our boots sunk into soft ash-colored dirt, and the camera clicked like a heartbeat. Every frame captured the mood of the desert: defiant, melancholic, cinematic. Shadows pooled in the folds of worn denim. A model leaned against an abandoned gas pump, smoke curling from her cigarette like it was whispering to the dust. The wind moaned low and slow, pulling at hems and hair, making everything feel undone, like a memory that won’t stay still.
Death Valley doesn’t care about your plans. It makes its own rules. That’s what makes it perfect. Out there, your ego dies and your vision sharpens. You’re just another flicker on the film, another soul chasing beauty in a place that’s been burning forever.
When it was over, we packed up as the sun leaned low against the mountains. We drove out slow, tires crunching gravel, the heat shimmering off the pavement like ghosts rising. The desert held onto us, each mile pulling something from our bones.
In the rearview mirror, the valley melted into haze, and we realized we hadn’t just captured a campaign—we’d shot a story. A fever dream. A mirage on 35mm.
A love letter to the forgotten places where fashion doesn’t just exist—it survives.