Nancy Baron: The Good Life, Palm Springs

Nancy Baron: The Good Life, Palm Springs by Aline SmithsonMay 15, 2012

For the last several years, I have had the great pleasure of seeing Nancy Baron’s photographs featured in the Palm Springs Photo Festival’s slide show, and last week attended the opening of her exhibition,The Good Life, Palm Springs, currently on display at the 825 Gallery/LAAA in Los Angeles. Nancy offers an insider’s perspective of the high and the low life of desert living, and combines brilliant color with small nuances that make us want to start mixing the cocktails and getting our feet wet.

Born in Chicago, now living in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, Nancy has a background in documentary film making, and her work has been exhibited across the U.S, and published around the world.

The Good Life, Palm Springs

I like to discover and document, without judgement, the exotic subculture next door, aiming to capture and celebrate the majesty in worlds that could easily be overlooked, seen as mundane, otherwise misunderstood.

Backyard Morning

In the time that Palm Springs has been my second home, I’ve found it to be exactly and nothing like what I expected it to be. Having ridden the waves of economic and cultural trends, the town offers a wide variety of lifestyle choices, not all of which are apparent to the occasional tourist. The idea of Palm Springs evokes a well-defined image internationally. These varied definitions are all accurate and, yet, this oasis of layered Americana is often misunderstood.

Golf Course Plane

It’s easy to dismiss the town as a frivolous playground for whomever one imagines its visitors or residents to be. The truth is, Palm Springs is a brilliant example of the American Dream; springing from nothing out of the desert sand, continually reinventing itself with hope, determination, and the belief that everyone is entitled to The Good Life.