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Project Title
Project Type
Photography
Date
April 2023
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Visual Literacy
AU ROCKS
A Short Documentary by Teddy Skye Garcia
Watch my first ever video documentary project about the rock painting initiative around American University's campus (started by, well, me!)
@AU_Rocks was started as a de-stressor and a way for new students to get to know campus-- but it's quickly grown into a much larger initiative with a dedicated following, and this documentary shows the dedicated students behind it all.
ALTADENA
A Photo Essay by Teddy Skye Garcia
All Photos for "Altadena" made in ALTADENA, CALIFORNIA 12 March 2025
Just two months prior, Southern California was hit with the most destructive wildfires in it's history-- the Palisades and Eaton Fires. Destroying more than 16,000 structures over the course of 24 days, it was not just celebrities loosing their second beach homes like most media reported. In the 59 square miles that burned (for scale, D.C. is ~60 square miles, or roughly 2.5 Manhattans), many communities across SoCal lost everything-- including the people of Altadena who have lost their homes, their jobs, and their lives as they knew it. This photo essay is meant to capture the devastation, the tragedy, and the loss through just one community of dozens.
Pictured above is a driveway once part of a residential neighborhood, the houses behind it completely gone. This car, was marked "Not EV" (electric vehicle) to finish designating this site as non-hazardous. But it is nothing like it used to be, and never will be again. Though it may be marked non-hazardous, it will take years to re-build this community to what it once was.
This was the Boys Republic Thrift Shop (right), now in ash and rubble. Pieces from the sign lay charred amongst the walls and wares of the shop. While making this photo essay, I checked Google Street View to confirm locations, but found these places preserved indefinitely in this digital form. It was startling to realize those very same letters in this living image are now very much dead. (Click the underlined text for Google Street View.)
There is still smoke in the air. I could taste it as I walked by. This was not a restricted area I needed special permission to enter. This was out in the open, just as all the other devastation is.
Small businesses, churches, schools-- all places made for and by the community, are now only identifiable by what remains.
(left) This is what remains of Fox’s Restaurant— a cute little diner that’s been a bright red staple since the 1960’s. The sign is the only way to identify remains.
My own neighborhood was mostly unaffected by the fires (wind damages aside) so we were able to open our doors to those having to evacuate. One couple and their nine-month old baby, family friends from Pasadena, stayed with us for nearly a week. They did not lose their house, but their community is in shambles. They’d eaten at Fox’s, and told us the terribly bittersweet stories as we distantly watched a neighborhood burn.
There is an ache as I wonder just how many feel the same for places I’ll never know.
It's not just homes and local businesses that are gone, but also essential places for living, including this Aldi, (right) Altadena's largest grocery store. Shelves, aisles, and even merchandise, like the beer cans seen in the bottom of this photo, still remain among the collapsed walls. This vital resource left fallen with most of the city, kept behind a locked gate. Even when all there is to steal is a couple of burnt beer cans, its telling that a corporation's priority is locking the property up rather than helping those who've supported them.
It is the destruction of resources like these-- grocery stores, doctor's offices, post offices, schools, job sites, and more, that will prevent residents return, and unfortunately, take the longest to rebuild.
It's difficult to know how many homes were lost in the fires, but this is one of thousands of devastated plots. Among the remnants, you can spot items like a washer, dryer, stovetop, and barbecue, with power lines behind that worsened the fire’s spread. Stray sparks and fallen lines have often been accelerators in some of California’s most destructive fires, and this was no different.
For many survivors, returning home isn’t an option due to smoke damage and hazardous materials or major tripping hazards and unstable ground. This leaves thousands of Los Angelos residents unsure when, or even if, they'll be able to return and begin the arduous process of rebuilding.
The Altadena Community Church was founded in 1940. It served as a place of gathering, worship, and community until its collapse during the Eaton Fire. The distinct arch doorways used to lead those to a sanctuary— now it is in need of saving itself.
I don't practice much, religiously speaking. But I prayed during these fires. There was no way to act or help as the fires raged on. I was and am still committed to helping these towns in more concrete ways, but in desperation this felt like the least I could do. I cannot imagine the pain of wanting to pray for your home, your family and loved ones, your community, and having that place destroyed by the very thing you were praying against. A hallowed ground desecrated by, if not hell fire, at the very least a hellish one.
The emotional toll and devastation of the fire is shown no more clearly than in places like this.
Photos made on Nikon D3100 by Teddy Skye Garcia
Despite how impossible it may seem, the community of Altadena is committed to re-building and keeping their community alive. All along the areas of devastation are hung handmade signs like the one below, proclaiming love and dedication to the town. People from all over the world send their support to towns just like these, organizing fundraisers and volunteers to help on the ground. And even members of the community themselves, regardless of how much they themselves lost, are working to re-build what they can. Some residents have begun to return, including many of the people my family housed during the evacuation. Life is slowly returning. That is not to say there is not work to be done. The effects of this fire will take years to understand, and decades to play out in full...
It is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.
The hazmat suits may seem like overkill, but they are not. The amount of toxic debris still left from these fires and from the winds is immeasurable. Teams like these are working around the clock to clear hazardous materials like lead, mercury, and asbestos from these sites. That's because it's not just affecting the surrounding area, but the whole region. Combine those materials with with the ash, smoke, and hot wind gusts up to 100mph during the fires, and for weeks during and after the fires, the air quality 50 miles around it was terrible.
Just less than 30 miles out from the fire, my family was safe from the flames, but the wind caused damage in the backyard and for many of our neighbors. With Santa Ana winds, the fire is sometimes the least of your concerns. For a week after leaving California, and days after visiting this site, I could still feel the smoke lingering.
Photo by Teddy Skye Garcia
Light v.
Darkness:
The Capitol (Not for us,
Not yet)
WASHINGTON D.C. 29 January 2025 -- I am transgender, disabled, and my two homes are Southern California and Washington D.C. I have never felt the weight of systemic oppression more clearly. And as I saw these lights inside the Capitol building, I scoffed. There is no light left in there for me, not now.
But I must have hope. I have to hope the light I am seeing is for us all. That there are people in there fighting as hard as I am, as we all are.
It towers above, it looms. The shadows it casts are mighty, yes-- but this building, the light that for now may shine only on others, would not be here without us.
We will endure. The light will shine on us again someday. I have to know it will.
Motion : SNOWBALL SWING
WASHINGTON D.C. 12 February 2025 -- As mentioned, I'm from Southern California. This was my first ever snowball fight, so I thought, what better time to get shots of motion than me hitting snowballs using my cane like a baseball bat? So I set my camera, and with the help of a few friends on both sides of the camera, managed to make this shot of myself. This was a very difficult assignment, more so in that I have about 5 other photos I debated using instead. But between the angle, the dramatic snow spray, the clear motion, and the snowballs fight enduring in the background, I think this one really captures what I was going for.
(Also, it was just ridiculously fun.)
Photo by Teddy Skye Garcia
Human Touch:
Passed down
WASHINGTON D.C. 19 February 2025 on Nikon D3100 -- My father has been playing guitar since he was 14. And for his first father's day, my mother gave him a guitar. And when I began learning at the age of 14 myself, it was that guitar he taught me on, and the one you see in this photo.
Music is something that is so uniquely and beautifully human. And for me, it is something that is foundational to who I am as one. My memories as a child are touched by this very same guitar he played nursery rhymes and show-tunes and rock classics on. And my favorite memories with him are when we get to sing and play together.
I'm sick right now, why I'm not in class today, so it's ironic that when I'm contagious is the due date for human touch. But playing my guitar makes me feel closer than ever to others. Especially to the ones that matter.
Photo by Teddy Skye Garcia
Multiple planes: The first nice day
Photo by Teddy Skye Garcia
WASHINGTON DC 26 February 2025 on Nikon D3100 -- After a brutal winter in D.C., American University students rejoice-- pulling out their light jackets, or shorts for the bravest of them, and headed out to enjoy the first rays of sun. Students play sports and talk with friends as others happily traverse the campus, grateful to be warm once again. How long will it last? Who knows. But these students are taking advantage of all the sun they can soak up before it dips below the horizon once again.
Conflict: Complicit
BALTIMORE, MD 23 February 2025 -- My friend Amelie loves the aquarium, and goes every year on her birthday-- but she cries every time she goes. She worries her love of these animals makes her complicit in the often insufficient and sometimes cruel treatment these animals are given. Though the reflection in the glass shows smiling, happy people, they are oblivious to the situation these animals are in. This moment of connection between her and this animal should be a beautiful moment as it leaves her in awe, but her internal conflict also leaves her holding back tears.
Photo by Teddy Skye Garcia
