Ella Snyder Takes a Road Trip Up the California Coast
BYJustin MoranFeb 22, 2024
This past November, model Ella Snyder and photographer Olivia Parker took a road trip together up the California coast through San Luis Obispo and onto Morro Bay, where Snyder’s parents recently moved. They documented their journey along the way, grappling with feelings of being “uprooted, uncertain and hopeful,” as Snyder explains of their series titled The Grey Dawn of Tomorrow, after reconnecting with a place “that doesn’t quite feel like home.”
The two friends first met at Parsons, The New School in NYC, and eventually reconnected while living and working in Los Angeles. These images then “tackle feelings of growing up and change,” Snyder says. “The transformation eras we go through upon entering adulthood.” They’re hazy and relaxed, featuring Snyder smoking cigarettes outside the city among horses, empty buildings and power lines.
“We aim to express an unspoken tenderness found in the spaces between adolescence and adulthood, while dissecting gender, family and the idea of home,” Snyder says. “As a trans woman, these are ideas and feelings I am confronted with often: How do we handle change?What is the perfect balance between finding control, embracing and surrendering to the changes happening around us?"
Photography: Olivia Parker
Model: Ella Snyder
