Julien Sage is a 22 year old freelance photographer based in Los Angeles, a city with a year round mild-to-hot climate. Having pursued a BFA in photography at the California College of the Arts, Sage later left school to pursue freelance photography and also to start Mallard Press, a niche photo and art-book publishing company specialising in limited edition publications.
It was in the summer of 2017 that his photography series titled, "Baby It's A Heatwave" began materialising. "I was in New York, doing a photo class in the summer. And summer there was in August and it was just super super hot. And so I began doing a little assignment for myself, to photograph the heat there. So that was sort of the initial idea of it."
This project continued when Sage came back to Los Angeles and for the next year, Sage soon realises that summer meant more to him than just a season in the weather. "I think for people who grew up in LA, summer is much more of a feeling. It starts in June and ends in August but that doesn't have much to do with the weather. It's more of this sort of mentality of freedom that you feel as a kid getting out of school. Summer also gets marketed with the idea to be free, it is when people go on vacation and it is time to relax. On one hand, I think it is a beautiful idea but I think it is also a dangerous idea to limit and segment the time that you should be experiencing freedom or happiness."
Containing a specially written poetry by Sage himself, Baby, It's A Heatwave is also now available in the form of a 44 page photography zine. For his zine, Sage opted for semi-gloss paper, a decision that brings out the bold usage of colours and lightning in most of his photography. . All zines are individually hand numbered.
Baby, It's A Heatwave is now available on our webstore.
Julien Sage
@croquet_cowboy
