Brice Weaver Photography

05/06/2026

‘What Remains’

Bombay Beach exists in a space between collapse and reinvention. Once promoted as a desert resort destination along the Salton Sea, it now holds traces of tourism, entertainment, domestic life, and improvised expression scattered across an increasingly unstable landscape.

Rather than focusing only on decay, this series explores how people continue to create meaning within environments shaped by uncertainty. Empty gathering spaces, interrupted forms of communication, and isolated objects become evidence of both absence and presence at the same time.

Photographed on 35mm film, these images are less about spectacle and more about atmosphere, contradiction, and the tension between what disappears and what refuses to fully leave.

05/03/2026

Over the past year, I’ve been thinking more critically about how we define “mastery” in photography, particularly within merit-based systems.

Recently, I submitted an image to the Professional Photographers of America Merit Image Review as something of a test. The image, Deserted Refuel, received no merit, with potential.

That in itself isn’t the issue. Not every image should merit.

What made this result worth examining is that the same photograph was awarded 1st Place in the International Photography Awards.

Two respected platforms. Two very different outcomes.

That contrast raises a fair question. What, exactly, are we measuring when we talk about “merit” and “mastery”?

There is a real opportunity here. Expanding how merit is interpreted would not dilute the designation, it would strengthen it. It would signal that mastery isn’t just about technical ex*****on, but about intentionality, authorship, and the ability to communicate something that holds attention.

Photography has evolved. The way we evaluate it should evolve with it.

I’d welcome an open discussion with Professional Photographers of America and others in the community on how we can better align the merit system with the full range of photographic practice today.

04/29/2026

“Where the Promise Remains”

There’s a difference between recording a place and interpreting it.

These images were photographed on film in Bombay Beach, a location that exists in tension with itself. It was built on the promise of leisure, escape, and water. What remains is quieter, more complex. Traces of that original intention are still there, but they sit alongside absence, decay, and time.

What drew me to film for this work wasn’t nostalgia. It was precision.

Film forces a different kind of attention. You slow down. You commit. You accept that you won’t fully see the result until later. That delay creates distance between the moment and the evaluation. You’re not reacting instantly, you’re observing more deliberately.

There’s also something in the way film renders a scene that aligns with places like this. The color isn’t overly perfect. The tones fall off more naturally. Grain becomes part of the structure of the image rather than something added later. Small imperfections, shifts in light, subtle inconsistencies, those details don’t distract, they contribute.

In a place like Bombay Beach, those details carry meaning.

A faded sign still inviting people to visit. Objects that once had a clear purpose, now sitting without it. Familiar forms placed in a landscape that no longer supports them. None of it needs to be exaggerated. It just needs to be seen clearly, and with restraint.

That’s where film continues to hold value for me.

Not as a statement, but as a tool that reinforces the idea. It doesn’t try to perfect the scene. It preserves it, including the quiet imperfections that often say the most.

Because sometimes the story isn’t in the subject itself. It’s in the details surrounding it.

04/27/2026

04/26/2026

There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, especially after entering work into PPA’s merit system.

Over the past few years, a number of my images have been recognized in international competitions like IPA and TIFA, including a first place finish this past year. So naturally, I was curious how that same body of work would translate within PPA’s judging structure.

The short answer is, it didn’t. Not a single image earned a merit.

At first glance, that feels like a contradiction. But the more I’ve sat with it, the more I’ve realized it’s not really about quality, it’s about what’s being measured.

PPA’s system is built around consistency and speed of evaluation. Images are judged quickly, and there’s a clear emphasis on immediate readability, strong subject definition, and controlled visual hierarchy. That makes sense for a standardized process.

But it also raises a broader question.

What does it mean to “master” photography?

Because not all photography is designed to resolve in a few seconds. Some images are built to be read more slowly. They rely on layering, tension, and ambiguity. They ask the viewer to spend time, to look twice, to question what they’re seeing before it fully lands.

That kind of work can be harder to quantify in a system designed for efficiency. It doesn’t always present a single, dominant subject. It doesn’t always guide the viewer in a linear way. And because of that, it can be undervalued in structured judging environments.

None of this is to dismiss PPA or the merit system. It serves a purpose, and it does that well. But it’s also fair to acknowledge that it represents one definition of photographic success, not the only one.

For those of us working in more conceptual or fine art spaces, it’s a reminder that recognition isn’t universal. The same image can be celebrated in one context and overlooked in another.

That doesn’t make the work stronger or weaker. It just means it’s being viewed through a different lens.

And maybe that’s the bigger takeaway.

Photography isn’t one thing. It never has been. And any system that tries to define it too narrowly will always leave somet

04/24/2026

Anza-Borrego can shift in minutes. One moment it’s quiet, the next the sky takes over and the entire valley changes character. These frames sit right in that transition, where the clouds build, the light breaks through, and the landscape holds just enough detail to keep it grounded.

Shot on 35mm Kodak Portra 400 with a Canon 1N RS, this is the desert under moving light. The clouds carry the weight, but the film keeps it from becoming harsh. Highlights roll off instead of blowing out, shadows stay open, and the grain ties everything together so the scene feels cohesive rather than over-processed.

Part of the appeal is letting film be film. Not chasing perfect sharpness or a 4K look, not trying to resolve every edge. The grain, the slight imperfections, the way tones blend instead of separate, all of it creates a different kind of presence. It’s less about precision and more about how the scene actually felt standing there.

That’s where this place lives. Not just in the drama of the sky, but in the space around it.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California
35mm film photography, Kodak Portra 400, Canon 1N RS
Fine art desert landscape, analog photography, film grain, San Diego photographer

04/14/2026

Gas prices keep going up. That’s not new. It’s a nationwide issue, and in California it’s felt even more.

Out here in Borrego Springs, it’s amplified. There’s no quick drive to a cheaper station, no easy alternative. If you need gas, this is where you come, and you pay whatever the number says. Distance isn’t optional here.

The scene itself is ordinary, a small gas station, a price sign, people passing through. But what’s sitting in front of it shifts the read. That Statue of Liberty head has been here, part of the landscape, something easy to overlook if you see it every day.

Put it together with the price sign and it lands differently. A symbol tied to freedom and opportunity, in front of something that keeps getting harder to afford.

I titled this one Unaffordability.

04/14/2026

There’s a strange quiet out here.

Not the kind you get from isolation, but the kind that comes after something ends. You can feel it in the boats that no longer move, in the docks that still reach for water that pulled away, in the structures that were built with confidence and left behind with time.

This place wasn’t accidental. It was imagined. Invested in. Lived in. There was a point where this all made sense.

Now it sits in between what it was and what it became.

And somewhere in that shift, it’s become a place for artist expression. Not to restore it, but to respond to it. To use what’s left as material, context, and meaning.

That tension is what holds my attention. Not just what’s here, but what used to be.

04/13/2026

The Salton Sea exists because an irrigation canal from the Colorado River broke in 1905 and flooded this basin for nearly two years. It became California’s largest lake, and for a time people built around it as if it were permanent. Resorts, marinas, an entire community built on something that never stabilized.

Over time the water grew more saline, the fish died off, and the shoreline kept pulling back. More recently, a lot of the water that once reached the sea through agricultural runoff has been conserved and redirected to cities, which has only sped that up. What’s left now feels less like a place that was abandoned and more like something that never fully became what it was supposed to be.

Today, areas like Bombay Beach have turned into a hub for artistic expression. There are installations, objects, and pieces of text placed throughout the landscape, not random, but clearly intentional. People are using the space to say something, whether it’s about the place itself or something larger.

I kept my approach simple and controlled. One subject at a time, framed straight, letting each piece stand on its own without relying on everything around it.

These are a few frames from today. I also shot two rolls of Portra 400, so I’m interested to see how the film renders it when it comes back.

02/25/2026

‘The Distance Within’

Some distances can’t be measured in miles.

This image was made just after sunset, when the desert shifts into that quiet space between day and night. The light softens, color lingers for a moment longer than expected, and the landscape feels suspended in time.

I’ve always been drawn to roads like this. Not for where they go, but for what they reveal when you stop long enough to notice. Space, silence, and the subtle awareness of your own presence within it.

Sometimes the longest journey is the one inward.