Julia, in her element

I met Julia through one of my favorite restaurants here in Ojai, where she’s the GM. We slowly got to know each other, and somewhere along the way I started noticing the things she was growing through her Instagram. Flowers, vegetables, this incredible garden. I asked if she’d be up for letting me photograph her there. What I didn’t know was just how much she knows about all of it. Julia studied Natural Resource Management at Colorado State University, and the minute we stepped into the garden she completely lit up. She walked me around explaining what was growing, how things worked, what to taste, what to smell. There was so much knowledge there, but what struck me most was how much she loved it. You could see it in her. There’s something really beautiful about watching someone in their element. That place where they’re so absorbed in what they’re doing that everything else seems to fall away. I’ve been told I get that way when I’m photographing, so maybe that’s part of why I recognized it in her. Mostly, I just got to follow Julia around with my camera while she showed me a world she loves.

All photographed on film in Ojai, California.