Alberto Oviedo

photographer · director

Alberto Oviedo Monogram
A longboarder in a red helmet and striped tee bombs the centerline of an empty desert highway.
Personal·April 16, 2013

Desert Lifestyle

California Youth was shot in April 2013 on the roads outside Los Angeles, and it is the least art-directed thing I have ever made on purpose. The brief — mine, since nobody was paying for it — was one sentence long: photograph what being nineteen in California actually looks like, from inside the car.

The opener sets the law of the land. A longboarder in a red helmet crouched over the centerline of an empty highway, chasing his own shadow downhill. We drove ahead, I hung out of the tailgate, and he bombed the road until the light quit. No permits, no closures — just the oldest production insurance in the world: a road with nobody on it.

The rider cinches his red helmet against a hard blue sky.
The rider cinches his red helmet against a hard blue sky.
Rainbow-striped knee socks and white sneakers balanced on a longboard.
Rainbow-striped knee socks and white sneakers balanced on a longboard.

The details carried as much story as the action. A red helmet cinched against a cloudless sky. Rainbow knee socks planted on a deck. Youth lifestyle photography lives or dies on these fragments; a whole afternoon fits inside a pair of striped socks.

Golden hair streaming, she leans out the truck window into the desert wind.
Golden hair streaming, she leans out the truck window into the desert wind.
Hair mid-flip, backlit to a copper blaze as a jet crosses the empty sky.
Hair mid-flip, backlit to a copper blaze as a jet crosses the empty sky.
Wrapped in a striped beach towel and a trucker cap, she laughs into the wind.
Wrapped in a striped beach towel and a trucker cap, she laughs into the wind.

The girls owned the truck. Golden hair torn sideways by the desert wind, a hair-flip backlit into a copper explosion while a jet drew its line across the sky, a laugh half-swallowed by a striped beach towel. None of it was directed. My only instruction all day was do that again, slower.

Worn sneakers ride the window glass, desert scrub sliding past beneath.
Worn sneakers ride the window glass, desert scrub sliding past beneath.
White Converse crossed at the ankle, catching the last hard light.
White Converse crossed at the ankle, catching the last hard light.
Sneakers hooked over the truck door, legs trailing out the open window.
Sneakers hooked over the truck door, legs trailing out the open window.

And everywhere, sneakers — hooked over doors, crossed at the ankle, propped on glass. Feet out the window is the international sign of a day with no plan, and this series is essentially a monument to it.

A leap over the snowfield — red sneakers, bare limbs, and a mountain horizon.
A leap over the snowfield — red sneakers, bare limbs, and a mountain horizon.
Arms up mid-road, plaid shirt half off — victory over absolutely nothing, which is the point.
Arms up mid-road, plaid shirt half off — victory over absolutely nothing, which is the point.

We ended above the snowline, because in California you can — a leap over a spring snowfield in red sneakers before dropping back down to the warm valley, and a final frame of arms thrown up mid-road, plaid shirt half off, celebrating nothing at all. Which is, of course, the entire subject.

These highways were an old friend by then; I had chased their weather alone, four years earlier, for a series of cinematic desert landscapes. Add people and the same roads change genre — from meditation to coming-of-age film. The crowd energy I borrowed came from a packed Spanish beach two summers before, and the same appetite for unscripted joy eventually took me to the dunes outside Dubai. But this one stays closest: nobody in these frames is posing for the future. They are too busy spending the afternoon.

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