“Dreaming California: High End, Low End, No End in Sight” (2023) is my second monograph with Daylight Books. It is the sequel to “Executive Order: Images of 1970s Corporate America,” released in 2018. Both books share a focus on wealth disparity, power, privilege, and social inequity. Together, they represent more than fifteen years of making photographs in Southern California. And together, they provide an inclusive portrait of the “mixed-up shook-up world” we live in today (and maybe how we got here – thank you Lola and the Kinks, circa 1970).

There is so much I could say about this new book: why I gravitate to Southern California to make photographs, how the “Dream of the Coast” resonates with the “American Dream,” how reality and fantasy intertwine with the hyperreal in my documents, my visual strategies, my humor, angst, and compassion for the people I photograph... This book encompasses much more than consumerism, greed, and our ongoing social divides. It’s about more than race and gender, the buzzwords of our times. “Dreaming California” represents the culmination of my entire 50-year photographic career, from the first black/white analog images I made of the disadvantaged on an Indian reserve in Canada (1973), to the color collages that combined stereotypical adverts of women with their similar images in masterwork paintings (1984), to the corporate CEOs and divas of Beverly Hills that I’m best known for depicting now. And that is why I hope to join CENTER’s Review Santa Fe next fall. I am interested in expanding my audience through portfolio reviews and the community engagement that this photo symposium can provide.

My goals are to share ideas, meet and view insightful image-makers, and hopefully make connections that will lead to more books, exhibitions, and a wider audience for my work. Thank you for taking time out to look at and consider my photographs.