All posts by Desdemona Dallas

Desdemona Dallas is non-binary photographer and filmmaker working and living in New York City. Desdemona’s work focuses on the power of personal narrative and capturing the transformation of one's intimate experience over time.

Zipporah Lomax, Luminary Photographer of Burning Man

I once heard the story of a child at Burning Man who looked around at the spectacle and said, “I don’t get what the big deal is. This is just a bunch of adults acting like children.”

An alternative community in the desert, Burning Man is an open canvas for self-exploration and self-expression. 70,000 people now make the pilgrimage each year for seven dusty days to experience the multi-layered experience that is Burning Man. Intermingled in the chaos there is a childlike essence to the endless playground that is constructed on the Playa (Black Rock Desert, NV) each year; and as the community grows, it ushers in more of the little burners. As adults, many Burners use these seven days to bask in the remembrance of the wild potentials for free expression that were the feelings of their childhood.

zipporah lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

Surrounded by youthful indulgences, the young Burners become the wise sages of this playful community. Children naturally bring some of the most potent Playa tools: their fiercely wild imaginations and insatiable hunger for play. The children of Burning Man are beautifully innocent and unwaveringly honest examples of the essence of this spectacular, cultural phenomenon.

Zipporah Lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

Zipporah Lomax, a festival photographer, has taken on the role of weaving the story of these dusty little ones into a photography book entitled Dusty Playground. Lomax has been a part of the Burning Man community for 15 years now. More recently, her lens has led her into the intimate lives of families on the Playa. In an art project funded by a group of individuals who believed in Lomax’s creative endeavor, Lomax received $47,775 from 448 backers to bring these photographic images to life.

Zipporah Lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

We had a chance to get the perspective of Zipporah Lomax herself on her approach to this colossal community that is opening the pages of a new perspective of Burning Man by honoring the “tiniest burners.”

BW: As an artist, you are constantly questioning what your work means to yourself and others; and to have such a resounding positive affirmation about what you’re doing, through your Kickstarter, that’s really fantastic.

ZL: I was really asking the world [with the kickstarter] to confirm that what I’m doing is worth putting all my energy into… I really could not have anticipated how much attention it would end up garnering on its own. … I thought people might laugh that I wanted to make a book about the kids. I think I’m still kind of in awe.

Zipporah Lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

BW: How do you feel your art is also simultaneously your gift?

ZL: Even if I thought about that for a while, I don’t know that I would be able to separate those two words from each other, “art” and “gift”… I really think that everyone was born with the ability to cultivate, or transform, an interest into a gift. If there is enough genuine and authentic interest in something, and enough dedicated and focused attention on it, I think that anything can become an art or a gift.

BW: As you watch the cultural identity of Burning Man change and more in the past 15 years, how has that affected your own artistic expression?

ZL: My first response is that it’s difficult to measure the shift in either the culture or myself, because I’ve been part of it… I know that for me Burning Man has always been a place, not to disconnect from some default world, and not to party my face off for one week in the desert, but really quite the opposite … There’s always been this clarity that comes for me, in that really dusty place.

Zipporah Lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

BW: How have you captured that change through your lens, and how have you captured the children within that change?

ZL: My first awareness of a little child was in 2001 at center camp. This tiny little baby, who wasn’t even walking yet, just sitting there in the dust in this white, very dusty onesie that said “F*ck Bush.” I remember looking at this child and just being so struck by imagining what this child was gonna grow up to be, having this really early exposure to what I felt was really a cutting edge experimental culture … I think I’ve always been really aware of them, fascinated by them, and totally in love with them. I think they are the dustiest little sages, and I’ve had the most awesome conversations with them, which I can’t really regurgitate, but in the moment I’m just like “you are such an awesome little being and I can’t wait to see who you become and what you do out there.”

Zipporah Lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

BW: You’re following these children through their learning experience of this culture that’s ever-evolving, just like these children are.

ZL: I want to spend more time with my subjects, and get to know them a little bit so that the photos are truly an honoring of what they are doing, and the more time that I can spend with them, even if it’s only five minutes, then the photos aren’t just this collection of visual high fives, they are these beautiful little vignettes.

Zipporah Lomax
Photo: Zipporah Lomax

BW: It’s like you’ve been chosen to tell this story.

ZL: I feel really grateful that I get to be the one to bring this project into being….As much as a mother doesn’t know what their child is going to look like while it’s growing inside them, I don’t know yet. I’m as in the dark as everyone else is about how it’s actually going to look, but I’m up for it, I’m ready to birth it.

To find out more about Zipporah Lomax and Dusty Playground, go to www.dustyplayground.com.

A Peek into a Festival Fashion Wardrobe

Staring out the window as rain slips down the glass panes, I’m draped in a culmination of winter layers, the warmth of a hot coffee dripping down my throat. The spring collection of Free People’s Kaleidoscope Skies is indulging my excitement for summer. Festival season is soon approaching, and I’m getting ever more hopeful that I will soon be able to shed my black winter wardrobe for the colorful classics of festival season.

Festival life has a fashion all its own where you can leave your city esthetics behind and adorn yourself like the colorful, rainbow flower-child inside. During festival season we are able to indulge that part of ourselves that only gets to blossom a few times each year when we’re frolicking in the fields, with music humming in the air, surrounded by strangers, united by music.

FANCIFUL IN FRINGE

At festivals I love fringe. Fringe jackets, fringe vests, fringe necklaces, fringe skirts, fringe you cut up and make yourself. Fringe makes everything more festive.

Boho girl in tribal fashion dancing in afternoon sunlight

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER IN A ROMPER

Rompers are definitely my go to at summer festivals. Shorts, pants, tight, loose, fitted, there are so many options to fit any mood. It’s the perfect Sunday outfit when the long weekend of fun and debauchery leaves you wanting to just throw something on and enjoy the day, hassle free in full comfort.

model in romper
© Antonoparin | Dreamstime.com – Model Walks Carmen Steffens Runway At The FTL Moda Spring 2016 Photo

ELECTRIFY THE DANCE FLOOR IN PATTERNS

Often in my non-festival life I feel a bit shy of over doing it with colors. I use festivals as a time to wear the brightest and most electric colors to decorate myself.

Rearview of a boho girl wearing a floral dress walking through water in nature at sunset

ALWAYS LOVELY IN LACE

Lace adds a feminine touch to the sometimes boyish look of ripped up cut off jean shorts. Simultaneously, lace looks beautiful with long skirts, and lace vests are a great addition to wear over summer dresses. A perfect way to accessorize, lace just gives you an extra little hint of lightness.

Bohemian styled young woman looking away

Bring any or all of these along with you to the festival grounds and you’ll be feeling like a beautiful summer babe on the dance floor.

All You Need to Know About 2016 Music Festivals This Season

It’s that time of year again: time to get out your cut off jean shorts, throw on your favorite dancing shoes, and get into your best festival gear. Summer festivals are the highlights of this sunny season we wait so patiently for every year from our winter abodes.

As touring becomes one of the only viable ways for musicians to make a living, more and more music festivals are popping up across the country. Festivals are what draw us out into the exploratory summer season to see who’s who and what’s what and dive into the never-ending hopes of what might happen on the dance floor. Discovering new music and hearing old favorites are what create the ecstatic memories of summer days. Here, we’ve put together some of our favorite festival choices for this summer’s musical lineups.

 

SASQUATCH – May 27th to 30th – The Gorge Washington

Sasquatch has to be the most scenic festival that happens all summer. Held right over the beautiful gorge in Washington State in a natural amphitheater, it is the best backdrop for any artist, and this year their lineup is spectacular. Sasquatch has an eclectic lineup of musicians from hip hop artists like A$AP Rocky, to the electronic tones of Grimes.

 

PITCHFORK – July 15th to 17th – Union Park, Chicago

Following in the footsteps of longstanding festival Lollapalooza, the well-known music blog Pitchfork has been hosting an annual music festival in Chicago. Pitchfork has become famous for being on top of the up and comers in the music biz. During the Pitchfork festival they host a wide range of those artists just hopping on to the main stream scene. Musical acts like FKA Twigs, Porches and Blood Orange are just a few of the varied musicians Pitchfork will be showcasing this year.

 

COACHELLA – April 15th to 17th and 22nd to 24th – Indio, California

Each year the best of the best from the music industry make the trek out to L.A. to catch a glimpse of what’s happening at the forefront on the global and national scene. Because of the crazy crowds I’ve heard its best to try your luck staying out of the festival grounds and hitting the VIP parties in and around Los Angeles You never know who you might find in the city streets.

 

WANDERLUST

Wanderlust festivals occur throughout the summer in various places across the U.S. This is not a music festival, but rather a yoga festival. Wanderlust festivals offer a space to deepen into your personal practice, find other like-minded individuals, and enjoy a high caliber of teachers from all over the world. The music is more of a side note but some of the acts are quite extraordinary.

 

PANORAMA – July 22nd to 24th – Randall’s Island Park, NYC

For the past few years Governor’s Ball festival has been holding down the summer music vibes on Randall’s Island in NYC, but this year Panorama is making its island debut. With headliners like LCD Soundsystem, Kendrick Lamar, and Arcade Fire, I have a feeling it’s going to be an East Coast adventure not to miss.

 

MO POP – July 23rd and 24th – West Riverton Park, Detroit

Detroit is landing more and more on the lips of those talking about artistic movements. It has become a hotspot for a growing art scene, which has sparked a number of festivals in the city, including Mo Pop. This year’s lineup is especially exciting, with many of the headlining acts being musicians I love, yet rarely find on festival flyers. Artists like Father John Misty, Shakey Graves, Glass Animals, The Head and the Heart, M83 and Haim will be sharing their musical styles.

 

SYMBIOSIS – September 22nd to 25th – Woodward Reservoir, California

In the world of West Coast electronic music festivals, Symbiosis is the best. Held just a few weeks after Burning Man, the Symbiosis team brings many of the musicians and art installations from the dessert out to the lake. People engage in a fantasy land of lights, color, sunshine and water for a camping gathering that’s all about the art.

 

Now that we’ve helped you on your merry festival way, get that sunny weather outfit ready and book your tickets to memory-making, music land U.S.A.

The Magnificent Beauty of Death Valley’s Super Bloom

After spending the winter in a snow-blanketed mountain town, trapped in by icy roadways, we finally broke free from the winter gloom. We ran towards the desert like there was no other escape from the clinching cold and snow, bounded away from the white encrusted ground, in search of yellower pastures in the desert bloom.

Death Valley National Park was our final destination, where we were to watch the dry Earth give birth.

In October 2015, a flood hit Death Valley after a three-year drought in California. The land, usually a basin for only two to three inches of rainfall a year, received three inches of rain in merely five hours. This rare El Nino weather pattern created the perfect condition for over 20 species of wildflowers to grow in enormous numbers, a phenomenon known as the Super Bloom. The last time this occurrence appeared in the valley was in 2005.

amargosa super bloom
Amargosa Opera House | Photo: Desdemona Dallas

After a 10-hour car ride, we arrived at the Amargosa Opera House for our first night in the desert. Murals of old characters lined the walls of the dilapidating inn. Its owner, a 93-year-old retired Broadway dancer, keeps the Opera House alive. She’s one of the few brave enough to search for her destiny in the driest, hottest place on the continent, just like the wild flowers, growing through the rough.

In the morning, the cold that had wrapped our bones for months unraveled and melted onto the desert floor, luring us further into the park. Waving goodbye to the last bits of civilization, we drove onward in hopes that we could find ourselves amongst the flowers.

The blossoms we were in search of live short, fleeting lives of ephemeral beauty, blooming only a few days before returning to sow their seeds back into the dusty carpet of Death Valley. Oh, what lies latent beneath the Earth’s crust! If a carpet of flowers can emerge from the Valley of Death what else can grow from an incubation of rock and sand?

flowers super bloom
Photo: Desdemona Dallas

The park rangers tip us off to head towards Badwater Basin, saving us from the Disney-land like maze of tourist traps. The basin is the lowest elevation in North America, and most lush point of the Superbloom, or so we had been told.

flower super bloom
Photo: Desdemona Dallas

In a thick sea of flowers, cameras and tourists, we tried to find sanctuary in the efflorescence, soaking in a sight, removed, yet surrounded by the all-encompassing landscapes. Just like the others who had embarked on the pilgrimage to the bloom, we filled ourselves with smells, colors, and photographs, enough to remember that it happened once our memories fade. Our flower and sun appetite satiated, we piled back into the car, sure that we had seen the bloom we drifted quietly along the road, ready to find a place to rest our heads.

flower super bloom
Photo: Desdemona Dallas

The desert heat woke us, stoking us with a relentless hunger to seize the day. We cruised through the park on a strange journey through tourism and establishment into deserted nothing. Large expanses of land, full of human traces, yet seemingly untouched, unfolded in front of us for miles. Neon-clad strangers walked by without smiles in the isolating vastness. The harshness of the desert’s dry heat wore away at the tendons of our road trip relations, coaxing our fears out of their subconscious caverns to rip at the seams of our experience.

With thoughts of a desert escape, we rolled through the park, ignoring the sign that clearly stated the road was closed. Desert Golden’s yellow bloom surrounded us. A painted mars-like landscape breathed life into a colorful mirage of endless yellow, blanketing a desert carpet. Coasting out of the tourist-entrapped park, we were surprised as we realized we had only skimmed the surface of the bloom at Badwater.

flower super bloom
Photo: Desdemona Dallas

The flowers tantalized us, floating in the gentle evening wind, beckoning us to run in their beauty. The sun tucked behind the rocky mountainside and at that moment the true bloom appeared, flowers upon flowers abounding in front of us upon hundreds of acres of yellow buds.

Rushing out of the car, astonished laughter reverberated our bodies and tired souls into an ecstatic and sudden awakened sensation. Our feet were colored with yellow pollen and the intoxicating smell released into the twilight. We run through the thick scent of honey, the golden-evening primroses lavish me with the laughter of their essence.

flower super bloom
Photo: Desdemona Dallas

The fleeting momentary spark of something that just slipped from your grasp moves through the desert winds like the scents of flowers under our noses. We hold onto this moment forever, yet it crumbles through our fingers at its indescribable nature.

Orion begins to shed his dusky skin above us, shining in the glory of the night sky. The yellow faces fade into the desert ground, the scent the only reminder of what lies beneath the dark. We had what we came for, bottled up in our cells of remembrance, gone again on midnight’s coat tails.

Badass Female Nomads

Their eyes widen, their mouth gapes open, they look me up and down, staring blatantly at the backpack towering over me in complete disbelief at the words, “yes, I am traveling alone.”

For many, travel is something that happens each year for a few weeks, a vacation to sip wine in Italy, or take in the sun in Mexico, or treck the Machu Pichu trail in Peru. But for a lucky and brave few, travel is the only way to live. The call of wanderlust is so loud within these individuals that it screams incessantly from their insides until it is satiated by the open road. These are the nomads who embark upon lifelong journeys of perpetual exploration, and leave only stories in their wake.

These female nomads all have quite the bad ass story.

Alexandra Baackes

Alex started wandering when she went to South East Asia while still in college in 2009. Her endless adventure started in a backpack in small hostels on the beaches and jungles, mostly in Thailand. Over the years since she began she has continued her nomadic ways without stopping. Impressively, Alex has made life on the move a dream-come-true through the blog in which she writes about her adventures, sharing information, tid-bits and travel tales to her loyal readership.
Alex’s humor, which she claims came from her father, and her transparent honesty that comes through her writing, gives her readers a special peek into her nomadic life. Her fans love her not just for where she goes, but for who she unabashedly is on the road. Coupled with beautiful photography and a wealth of vast information, AlexinWanderland.com is like a diary telling of the traveler’s life.

Shayna Gladstone

Most travelers are nomads at heart, and the world is their open canvas to walk upon. Shayna Gladstone is an activist first, traveler second. This is a woman whose passion for changing the world has lead her into the most unique villages, Indigenous communities, and permaculture gardens through North, Central and South America. Her work combines that of other writers to curate a blog of people around the world who are working to create positive change in the world.

Currently Shayna works with project NuMundo to bring their readers information on collectives and communities that people can travel to, to unite with other activists around the globe.

Madison Perrins

I met Madison when she strolled out of a van with four other young men on a beach in El Salvador. The group had been traveling from the U.S. through Central America on their way to South America on a photography journey. The group was called Vanajeros and they were moving through two continents on a mission to document the people and places they encountered along the way.
That was three years ago. Madison has since continued to develop her eye for photography and travel in her van, using Instagram as one of many mediums to share her travels. Currently, there is quite a contingency of Instagram travel photographers. Madison is using the app as a tool to share the way she sees the world in a profoundly colorful and poetic way. Her Instagram tells the story not only of a traveler seeing different places, but also as a curious and wandering spirit who experiences the world through a lens of color and magic.

Madison currently works for Backpacker Magazine.

Aidan and Madison // BEST JOB EVER // Vanajeros.com from Vanajeros on Vimeo.

Rita Goldman Gelman (The O.G. Nomad)
Before I ever put a backpack on my back and followed my intuition into the unknown, I heard of the book Tales of a Female Nomad. This was a truly inspiring tale of a woman who set out in the world and found not only herself, but humanity; a bad ass lady who went to the far reaches of the world and discovered the aspects within herself one can only define from a life of movement. She continues to travel after many years on the road, and may be the closest thing to an actual nomad that exists in this new age. Her tale continues to inspire women of all generations to listen to what is in their heart.

Featured Image: Shayna Gladstone of Numundo.org

Music to Move Past a Breakup

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is in love except you. Everyone in the park is holding hands, all the people in restaurants are on dates, and you are the only one left on the planet without some one’s hand to hold. During these times, it’s simple to fall into a world of despair, deciding to just stay home and wallow in your tears, not daring to leave the comfort of your home for fear of the sadness you may encounter outside.

It’s at the height of this heartbreak that it seems even every radio station and song is boasting about lovers and the romance of life. Seeing the truth of true love feels impossible and unrelatable after a breakup. This is the perfect moment to actually let music raise your spirits. Turn off the radio and find something new and inspiring to get you through the pain of lost love.

When your emotions are overcome with heartache, finding the perfect musical outlet can be a challenging feat. Here’s a mix of songs that’ll uplift your spirits and have you dancing in your underwear singing at the top of your lungs, heartbreak and all.

  1. “Play It Right” by Sylvan Esso
  2. “REALiTi” by Grimes
  3. “Follow The Sun” by Xavier Rudd
  4. “Featherstone” by The Paper Kites
  5. “Holy Roller” by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
  6. “Medicine” by Rising Appalachia
  7. “Slow Motion” by PHOX
  8. “Better Go” by Mal Blum
  9. “Budding Trees” by Nahko Bear and Medicine for the People
  10. “As I Am” by Paper Bird