A collection exploring mid-century landscaping in Northern California by photographer and author Drew Waters. Born in Australia, Waters is predicated in Berkley, California and Asheville, North Carolina. His work explores suburban ecology and commodified areas of city residing. In “Contra Costa” Waters walks the streets of his neighbourhood at evening observing the methods during which the cultivated plant lifetime of house owner gardeners, landscaping contractors, and day labourers mirror the perpetual wrestle to convey the unkempt wildness and chaos of nature underneath management:
“In witnessing myriad shrubs and bushes being formed to suit the strains of the city surroundings I got here to really feel empathy for these residing types; the inherent inclination to develop wild, in unpredictable methods, right here made to evolve to a suburban order of concrete strains and neatness. I additionally got here to look at a private recognition, a metaphorical depiction, for a way we might every enable ourselves to be formed by the calls for of city residing, the methods we’re compelled to change our personal wants and compulsions, to exist inside, or to take care of the homogenizing forces of labor, effectivity, and productiveness.”
See extra photos from “Contra Costa” under.