This photoshoot was done on Mt. Baldy, near the area John grew up in and has known most of his life. The poem featured below is the poem he was writing during the shoot.
9 Ways to Locate the Ghost of Yourself in the High Sierra
by John Brantingham
1. Press
your ear to the trunk. The loggers, their mad, drunken songs.
2. Lightning
storm, sugar pine, your head upturned, your mouth a fat bowl.
3. A girl
curls into the little gap burned into a sequoia tree the way a bird sleeps a
nest.
4. Translucent
shrimp haunt the caves beneath your soles. Shout to them as you pass.
5. Locate
the treeline by following the pika’s chirp.
6. Fire
season and the smoke chokes your cough. Now the forest is in you too.
8. What
happened to 7? He wandered too close to the river, swept into everlasting.