JAKE STANGEL x "STEEP RAVINE"

"I’ve been going to Steep Ravine since 2012," says Jake. "It’s a remarkable plot of land that sits right on the ocean just south of Stinson Beach and north of San Francisco. There are ten cabins that used to be privately owned, one by Dorothea Lange, and eventually the cabins became part of the California State Parks system.

It’s my favorite place in the world and I often go here to recharge and not really take many photos. But this time I wanted to commit to the bit and put the experience into photos in the way that I feel it in my bones.

I’m an only child who grew up with very little TV and a lot of Legos; I often tell people I’m a deeply unimaginative but very observant person. My little Lego people never went to fantasyland; they went to the airport or to work or back home to eat dinner.

I think I spent my childhood just quietly observing, but always in the here and now. Never in the past, never ever in the future.

My photographic happy place is taking in a moment or scene in real time and figuring out what, exactly, is making it feel alive and memorable. Like what you’re maybe subconsciously storing as a sensory memory to hold onto for later. It’s almost never the big wide scene; for me it’s almost always some small set of details."