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Barron Bixler

Barron Bixler is a social-environmental documentary photographer, writer, designer and curator. He is Creative Director of Blue Lab at Princeton University and holds an appointment as Art and Media Specialist at Princeton’s Effron Center for the Study of America.

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BOOM: A Journal of California

By bbixler Publications + Press March 4, 2022 0

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Barron Bixler on Instagram

barronbixler

Environmental documentary photographer, filmmaker, writer, designer, curator, creative director at @bluelab.princeton.

Mainlining Maine skies and light.

Mainlining Maine skies and light.

Excited to ship these babies off for @centersantaf

Excited to ship these babies off for @centersantafe 's upcoming group exhibition We Hold These Truths.

I picked up the frames for cheap from the reject pile at Michael's like a year ago and always knew they'd be right for this fishy project. Wowza.

I'm a little haunted by this thing I completely fo

I'm a little haunted by this thing I completely forgot about.

A year before the Palisades Fire erupted, and 14 months before I started documenting the workers cleaning up the wreckage of the fire, I was experimenting with Dall-E to sketch some ideas I had for a film about a speculative future in which climate change would come for coastal California, and specifically LA.

I can't believe how much these images look not like speculative AI-generated hallucinations, but the genuine article...if slightly abstracted in that crude style of early generative AI, which I now strangely miss.

The lesson: no good ever comes from spending a Sunday organizing your files.

No symbolism. Just wanton pyromania.

No symbolism. Just wanton pyromania.

Toxic typology. These sites process wastewater co

Toxic typology.

These sites process wastewater contaminated with forever chemicals, radiological waste and volatile organic compounds before releasing it into nearby waterways.

Drone stills from a new film project.

Some occasional highlights from a day at home and

Some occasional highlights from a day at home and in Philly with the lights of my life.

Happy father's day to all you adorable pirates.

Forever chemicals are also everywhere chemicals.

Forever chemicals are also everywhere chemicals.

They're found in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the products we buy.

They're also in all of us. Known technically as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS for short, forever chemicals have contaminated bodies and ecosystems the world over.

The very quality that makes forever chemicals so useful is also what makes them especially dangerous: the chemical bond at their center is one of the strongest in nature. Left to their own devices, these substances never break down. But their iron grip on our world may be loosening.

@allison.b.carruth and I are working on a new @bluelab.princeton short documentary film about a naturally occurring microbe, discovered in the oxygen-starved mud of a wetland just 40 miles from the DuPont plant where forever chemicals were first invented, that can metabolize a wide range of these toxic substances. The discovery could prove to be revolutionary.

We're following two teams of scientists in their quest to perfect and scale up the science for real-world application.

Always imperfect, always our guy. I'd give you a f

Always imperfect, always our guy. I'd give you a flaming viking funeral if I could, Mr. Colbert.

(Circa October 2021, a 1-year-old Julian clapping along to a funny bit.)

#colbertlegacy

I spent an exceptional few days in California to f

I spent an exceptional few days in California to film a captive spawn of endangered white abalone with the talented team @whiteabalone led by the inspiring @alyssarfrederick .

I even got to hop on a @lighthawk_org plane with 200,000 white abalone embryos bound for Santa Barbara, my first small plane ride. Captain Rhon and copilot Peter successfully delivered the goods (and me, thankfully).

Today I flew from Santa Barbara to San Francisco, then treated myself to a negroni at Delfina. Tomorrow I fly home. So that's the story. Cool people. Big adventures. Exhaustion.

In case you don't know what I look like, I installed some wayfinding signage in some of the photos.

Thanks to new friends and gifted filmmakers/artists Maya and Fabian of @theunderstory for a couple of these gems!

The first day in a week of planned (and unplanned)

The first day in a week of planned (and unplanned) celebrations for @allison.b.carruth, who is turning a specific number this week.

My plan to grill a filet mignon roast over fire was complicated, but not derailed, by the arrival of a blizzard.

Our (almost exclusively wonderful) 5-year-old decided to plug up an upstairs sink drain and let the faucet run until we had water sheeting through the downstairs ceiling onto the floor of our dining room.

A glass container holding a whole chicken in our fridge spontaneously shattered, launching shards of glass into all of our chilled comestibles.

As my grandpappy always used to tell me: "Joke's on you, asshole!" Actually, I never had a grandpappy. And actually it was a really great day. But still. I'm just glad I didn't pick today to cancel my life insurance policy, or bet our life savings on Canada's hockey team. 😂

Some outtakes from our time working on our documen

Some outtakes from our time working on our documentary movie in California over the past month. I'm crazy lucky to get to spend time with such remarkable humans in these places I love, trying to imagine what the coastal future might look like.

Most photos are by the inimitable @allison.b.carruth (with almost none featuring her because, well, I had my hands full). It's all the feels to be on this @bluelab.princeton filmmaking journey together.

Finally soaring homeward after a long stint in Cal

Finally soaring homeward after a long stint in California working on our documentary movie. @allison.b.carruth joned me for a chunk, which was so good, but it was also more time than I've spent on my own in years. I've been angry and heartsick watching government-sponsored violence erupt in Minneapolis and elsewhere, and also staggered by that community's absolute grit and bravery. I've been in the company of family and friends, and countless strangers with whom I shared some moments of magic. I've had rare time to sit quietly with my thoughts. I should do it more often, but who the fuck has time? And now I just can't wait to get back home and squeeze my kid, hold him tight, and be with Allison.

Alex, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2

Alex, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2025

The Army Corps’ Phase-2 debris removal operation in the Pacific Palisades depended on thousands of workers like Alex shoveling toxic ash – by hand and using consumer-grade gardening tools – out of every crevice of every foundation of every building damaged by the fire.

The workers charged with clearing a million tons of debris and toxic ash from the Palisades Fire burn zone in Los Angeles have been almost entirely missing from both national and regional media outlets’ coverage of the Palisades and Eaton fires. Many of them live in neighborhoods around LA that are being terrorized by ICE.

That they gave so much of themselves and have been met with such poor thanks is cause for outrage. One among so many in our moment.

I'll be sharing some highlights from my project And Hell Followed: Digging Out in the Palisades Fire Burn Zone, published recently at @highcountrynews . (Link in bio.)

Paskenta Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2025 Ami

Paskenta Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2025

Amid the ash and rubble of the Palisades Fire, garden statues that survived the fire appeared to stand sentinel.

Some highlights from my project And Hell Followed: Digging Out in the Palisades Fire Burn Zone, published last week at @highcountrynews . (Link in bio.)

Brayan, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March

Brayan, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2025

The workers who undertook the work of clearing a million tons of debris and toxic ash from the Palisades Fire burn zone in Los Angeles have been almost entirely missing from both national and regional media outlets’ coverage of the Palisades and Eaton fires. Many of them live in neighborhoods around LA that are being terrorized by ICE. That they gave so much of themselves and have been met with such poor thanks is cause for outrage. One among so many in our moment.

I'll be sharing some highlights from my project And Hell Followed: Digging Out in the Palisades Fire Burn Zone, published this week at @highcountrynews . (Link in bio.)

Thank you @bearguerra and @mckennastayner for believing in this project.

Me hiking a mile across squishy, slippery intertid

Me hiking a mile across squishy, slippery intertidal mudflats with @allison.b.carruth carrying a 30-pound cinema camera and tripod over my shoulder.

I filmed a little, but the adventure was really to conduct an aerial survey with my drone. This oyster farm we've been filming since 2023 needed images of an unused portion of their lease for a permitting application to expand their operation. It's been decades in the making for them...a dream. So we happily volunteered to help these wonderful people who've been so good to us.

And just like that, we the documentarians became part of the story. An amazing day.

Luis, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2

Luis, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2025

"I saw the fire on t.v. and thought: ‘This is crazy.’ But I never expected that the whole town was gonna be gone. When I saw it for myself, I felt sick. Then I had to get to work.”

I'll be sharing some highlights from my project And Hell Followed: Digging Out in the Palisades Fire Burn Zone, published this week at @highcountrynews .

Central to the project are pictures of and conversations with some of the thousands of workers, mainly Latino, who undertook this dangerous, heroic work.

Their faces and stories need to be seen.

Alex, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2

Alex, Villa View Drive, Pacific Palisades, March 2025

On the anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton Fires, I'm honored to have a picture from my project about the Palisades Fire cleanup operation featured in this powerful exhibition organized by @apa_sd, opening this Saturday 1/10 from 5-8pm at WOO Studios in San Diego.

Between March and July of 2025, I documented the work and stories of some of the thousands of unknown fire cleanup workers, mostly from working-class, majority-Latino communities around Los Angeles.

A photo essay about my time with them in the Palisades Fire burn zone is forthcoming next week from @highcountrynews.

Special thanks to jurors @alyssasi and @lopesshana for selecting this work and story to be seen. I'm grateful.

An oyster farm at the ebb of a king tide.

An oyster farm at the ebb of a king tide.

It was a big, beautiful, surreal day. 24 drunken r

It was a big, beautiful, surreal day. 24 drunken revelers dressed in pig costumes plunging into the Pacific Ocean to celebrate the new year? Give me a double helping.

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