In the following months, I made several visits to the various parks, including Malibu Creek State Park, Solstice Canyon and Corral Canyon Park, to see what I could find. At the start of the project, California was experiencing unusually abundant rainfall, which — combined with the burn — resulted in a gorgeous superbloom. Up and down the coast, the canyons and hillsides were blanketed with wildflowers, including purple lupines, California poppies and an abundance of the invasive yellow mustard. This yielded numerous opportunities to illustrate nature’s resilience and made for an enjoyable couple of spring days.
Showing the destruction was a little harder. Most of the damaged homes had been razed at that point, leaving little to see but concrete foundations. Blackened branches from the charred chaparral were smothered by seas of yellow and purple. There was still visible damage to be found in places like Paramount Ranch, where the famous Western Town filming location (seen in HBO’s “Westworld”) still lay in ruins — save for the church and train depot that were somehow spared.
By May the superbloom had mostly passed, and it was evident that much was returning to normal in the park. I spent one afternoon on a guided hike in Malibu Creek State Park, where we saw mountain bikers, rock climbers and families swimming in the Rock Pool, a popular swimming hole. It was great to see so many people out enjoying the parks a short time after such a devastating event.
The pictures in this post what ran in the magazine and the tear sheets from the magazine plus a personal favorite that didn’t make the cut. Despite the underlying subject matter, I had a great time creating them and hope you enjoy. I’ve also posted some additional outtakes on my instagram, @davidzentz.
While nature’s resilience is inspiring to witness, for me the feelings of awe were undercut by the knowledge that this and the large number of wildfires being experienced here and throughout the world lately are caused by — or at least being exacerbated by — human-made climate change. I’m generally not an alarmist, and I try not to preach, but the situation has become dire and will only get worse without significant, top-down change. We can all do our small part in the way we live our daily lives, but the most important way to affect change is to vote, both at the ballot box and with our dollars. Support politicians, companies and organizations that will help us quickly transition to a less oil-dependent economy. It’s not simple, but that’s as simple as it can be. Leaving a world and life for our children that somewhat resembles what we’ve been fortunate to have for ourselves has to be priority number one over any short terms gains to be had from tax cuts and deregulation. Just my two cents.
