Something spectacular happens each Spring in Los Angeles – a remarkable bloom of desert flowers in the most unexpected places, the on-ramps and berms of the freeways running through and around Los Angeles, as well as along the city’s essential infrastructure, dams and tunnels. This explosion of colours, textures, and shapes bordering the city’s asphalt and concrete corridors reminds us that the land is not finished with us, nor we with it. In the most unlikely places, nature shocks us into companionship.

With my collaborator novelist Ivy Pochoda, who is local to Los Angeles, I began photographing these flowers, trying to capture the unlikely appearance of such vibrant nature alongside, behind, below, and on top of the known city. We discovered in our first outings a wholly unexpected side to Los Angeles, one that startled us with its surprising elegance and wild beauty.