For generations, a certain West Coast city has existed in the collective imagination as a place of opportunity and magical thinking, attracting multitudes from all corners of the world. But as mythology teaches us again and again, allegory doesn't easily align with the truth, and yet the city manages to find an unexpected harmony, an equilibrium through its many contrasts and contradictions. This work seeks to capture that special resonance by embracing the paradox between an idealised version of the West and the reality, honing in on the abundant symbolism of everyday objects in unusual places to highlight the links between seemingly disparate elements while exposing the latent humour hidden in the banal. By acknowledging the contradictions through patterns of degeneration and decay, renovation and rejuvenation, and by invoking the familiar motifs of open spaces, motels, signage, palm trees, old cars and perpetual blue skies, the city is navigated as a wayfarer might, using the symbology as a map with which to explore an often surreal landscape, finding treasures never expected while forgetting, for a moment, the ones that were promised. The frames were primarily taken around the city and the adjacent desert.