California Dreamers

Sally Davies is a photographer whose works are in the Museum of the City of New York and the 9/11 Memorial Museum. She is the author of the acclaimed McDonald's Happy Meal project (1.5 million online hits) and her archive is part of the Downtown Collection of Fales Library at NYU. She took Allen Ginsberg’s old apartment when she moved from Canada to New York in 1983, and she still lives in the East Village with her dog Bun. She is the author of New Yorkers, published by Ammonite Press in 2021.

The myth of California is an enduring one: a place of new beginnings touched by sun, sea and surf with ever-present Beach Boys harmonies drifting on the breeze. Photographer Sally Davies’ past work has involved snapping New Yorkers, but her new work, ‘California Dreamers’ (Ammonite Press, £20), captures Californians of all stripes at home, at work and play: models, artists, lawyers, musicians, producers, magicians and more, such as Joan and Gary Gand (above) at their Palm Springs home in 2021. Davies gets underneath West Coast stereotypes and finds out why, a century on from the Gold Rush, people are still drawn to California to start again and strike it lucky.

• The California DreamersMark Storhaug 2Foreword 6Donna Lee 7Introduction 8Tarran Merrill 9Osbaldo and Rosa Castro 11Deke Dickerson 12Denise Cook 15Charles Phoenix 16Brandon Wargo and Thuc Doan Nguyen-Brophy 19Arturo Mirafuentes 20Eric Gray 23Carol Holden 24Marco Franchina 27Ryder Noyes 29Gabriella Redding 30Mandon Lovett 33Kimberly Biehl Boaz and Greg Boaz 35Jeff Guthrie 36Helen and Gene Gleason 39Victor Spencer 40Michael Vegas 42Veronica Hunt and Dan Bigelow 45Linda Ramone 47Lynda Kahn 49Blair Sebastian Toles 50Nils Grevillius 53Nathan Galligani and Lily Polstein 55Lily Noyes 56Dennis Keeley and Veronica Cotter 59Ed Solózano 60Adam Normandin and his wife Allison 63Kristian Hoffman 64Mary K Humfeld and Sonia Manganaro 67Jonathan Paley 69Andrea Taylor 70Claude Hall 73Ronnie Barnett 74Barry Blinderman 77Richard Haymes and Michael DeJong 78Leigh Wishner and Brian Light 81Carl Bogen 82Xiao Liu and John Winter 85Cinn 86Nancy and Spencer Hunt 89Diane Cockerill 90Cybill 93Michael Hilf and Alyson Souza 94Sara Reyna 96Janet and Eric McCormack 99John Lansing 101Louis Jacinto and Kene Rosa 103Tosh and Lun*na Berman 104Sheila Silber 107Bryan Ray Turcotte 108Rob Zabrecky 111Ed Valfre 112Aleksei Tivitsky and Lena Moross 115Thom Zimny 116Sam Tobey 118Ingrid Grunewald and Harvey Kornspan 120Kathryn Solózano 123Pamela des Barres 125Vin Stratton 126Donald Diers 129Jane Shirkes 131Bill Lustig 132Bernie Shine 135Mat Geason and Leigh Salgado 136Gwynne Ridgway and Ross Vinstein 139Greg Gary 140Annie Sperling 143Steven Reigns 144Phil and Lisa Noyes 147Johnny Cubert White 149Seymour Stein 150Cynthia Bach and Jim Matthews 153Kitten Kay Sera 154Stephen Henry 157Joan and Gary Gand 158Acknowledgments 160