Where You Live Is the Studio

You don’t have to travel far to make an extraordinary photograph. Sometimes your greatest creative advantage is being close enough to return.

When I was learning how to become an artist—not just how to use a camera—I came across a story about filmmaker Frank Capra that stayed with me.

Capra had a long relationship with La Quinta Resort & Club, where he and his wife, Lucille, made their home in his later years. In my La Quinta Resort history walkthrough on YouTube, which I filmed while walking through the resort with Judy Vossler and her daughter, Lisa Vossler Smith, they share memories of Capra’s life there—including his afternoons taking photographs with Lisa. ^{[1] [2]}

Here was a director who had spent his career telling stories on movie screens, still curious about the small stories unfolding around his home.

I recognized something in that way of living. It resonated with what photography was becoming for me here in the Coachella Valley, particularly at Trilogy Polo Club, the community where I live. Capra didn’t teach me a technique. His example gave me perspective on what a life of observation and storytelling might look like, even in its later chapters.

The advantage of your own backyard

Trilogy Polo Club has landscaped streets, lakes, mountain backdrops, and more small pockets of life than you might notice on a first visit. I’m fortunate to live somewhere with so much to photograph. But beauty alone isn’t what gives me an advantage here.

It’s access.

I see the same streets in different light. I pass the same plants before, during, and after they bloom. I notice the birds that visit our neighborhood lake. And because I’m already here, none of this requires packing for an expedition or setting aside an entire day.

A visitor might get one beautiful afternoon. I get thousands of ordinary moments—and occasionally, one extraordinary one.

Taking photographs with your eyes

I often say that I’m taking photographs with my eyes, even when I don’t have a camera in my hands.

That habit developed from using a camera so often. Now when I walk through my neighborhood, I can imagine different ways of framing a scene: a wider view that establishes the landscape, a more intimate composition, or a tighter view that brings a small detail forward.

I’m not necessarily reaching for my camera every time. I’m studying where I might stand, what belongs in the frame, which direction the light is moving, and what could happen if I came back another day.

This is preparation, not merely daydreaming. When the opportunity arrives, I’ve often made some of the creative decisions already. That is the same habit I describe in How to See Light: learn to recognize the opportunity before worrying about capturing it.

A snowy egret and a neighborhood lake

One of my favorite examples is a snowy egret that spent about a month around the lake in my neighborhood.

I had recently bought binoculars and was becoming more serious about birdwatching. At first, I simply noticed this brilliant white bird when I drove past. Then I started stopping to observe it. I watched it for days, learned about how snowy egrets hunt along the water’s edge, and paid attention to the way this particular bird moved around the shoreline.

I had a photograph in mind, but getting close enough was difficult. I didn’t have the kind of long, specialized telephoto lens bird photographers dream about. I was using a sports lens with a 2× extender, which meant I needed to learn the bird’s behavior and approach the situation patiently.

Eventually, rather than trying to follow the egret, I sat in the grass and let it come toward me.

What I wanted was more than a clean portrait of a bird. I wanted the water, the shoreline, the careful movement of the egret, and a sense of Trilogy Polo Club in the background. I wanted to package a story into a single frame. To me, that’s the name of the game with photography.

The lake is right along my route home. Sometimes, when I need a break from work, I can hop on my scooter and go watch the birds. That small convenience gave me the time to observe, make mistakes, try again, and finally create something closer to what I had imagined.

The photograph began long before I pressed the shutter.

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The lake photographs were made inside a private community. Practice wherever you have permission to be, give wildlife room to feed and rest, and never pursue a bird to get the frame. For help recognizing the birds, explore Great Egret or Snowy Egret?

Learn the rhythms of a place

The longer I live here, the more I recognize that a location is never quite the same place twice.

Different plants at Trilogy Polo Club bloom at different times of year. Bird activity changes. Light shifts across the mountains and through our streets. Seasons influence what people do outdoors and how a familiar scene feels.

When you’re close enough to notice these patterns, you stop expecting every photograph to happen on demand. You learn to recognize when a place is offering something new.

And it works even if you don’t live near a lake or a mountain. Study the architecture, the shadows, the daily routines, or the local history. Notice what changes across a week, a month, or a year. There is a story there, even if you can’t see it yet.

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From the grand view to the smallest details

For a long time, I chased the biggest hike and the highest viewpoint. I wanted the sweeping image that explained an entire landscape at once.

Those photographs still matter to me. But studying Leonardo da Vinci helped inspire a different kind of curiosity: looking more closely at the smaller pieces that make up my homeland. The birds. The flowers. Their behavior, their seasons, their relationships to this place.

As I learned more, the subjects multiplied. What once seemed like a familiar stretch of desert became an almost endless set of stories worth exploring.

Desert Oasis Insider grew out of that impulse. It began as my own notebook and collection of photographs, then developed into a larger mission to follow my curiosity and understand the Coachella Valley—its nature, history, communities, activities, and culture. Learning golf, spending years playing pickleball, hiking, and studying local wildlife have all expanded the ways I see this region.

The more I learn, the more I appreciate what has been here all along.

Learning how to love

I have a phrase for this process: learning how to love.

There was a time when I thought the place I lived was boring. What changed wasn’t necessarily the place. It was my perspective. I learned to ask more questions. Why do people enjoy this activity? What makes this plant remarkable? What is happening in this neighborhood that I haven’t understood yet?

Study the fundamentals of something long enough, and you often discover the heart of it—the reason someone else cares. That understanding can turn indifference into appreciation.

For me, living as an artist is part of a broader way of life, inspired by the Renaissance ideal of growing physically, intellectually, scientifically, philosophically, and creatively. Photography gives feeling and curiosity a form of expression. It helps me pay attention, and paying attention helps me care.

But you don’t need to adopt a philosophy to benefit from the practice. You can begin with one nearby subject. Visit it repeatedly. Notice what changes. Imagine the photograph before you take it. Learn enough about what you’re seeing that you know when to return.

Stay close. Go deep.

One of the greatest advantages a photographer can have is proximity. Close to home, convenience becomes repetition, repetition becomes familiarity, and familiarity becomes anticipation. You take hundreds of photographs with your eyes first—learning the light, the seasons, where to stand—so when the moment finally arrives, you’re already there. And living close means you can act on it.