Christy Schnabel

As a kid, I spent long summer days at the Santa Monica beach, lying in the warm sand, digging my hands and feet beneath it like a soft blanket. I go to this place often to escape chaos. The steady flow of people passing by reassures me. Sometimes, the path is a conveyor belt, shuttling people single-file across miles of white sand beach; other times, it is a stage across which an endless stream of characters enter and exit the scene. For two years, I walked along the side of the path from Temescal Canyon to Venice Beach taking hundreds of portraits.