In Mendocino, four hours north of San Francisco along a windy and desolate part of Highway 1, a two-lane country road cuts east and away from the fog. Here you’ll find a 400 acre farm called Oz. When I moved there in 2008, the collapsed housing market left me (an out-of-work carpenter) trading labor for a canvas tent and three meals a day. Oz was run by two families and a collection of transient farm interns. That year I built an “experimental” conical barn and became part of the commune.
Ethan Scott was born and raised in San Francisco’s foggy Sunset district. He was a carpenter until 2009 when he found photo assisting and moved to Los Angeles, and then New York, to learn as much as he could about the photo industry. After retreating from the east coast in 2016, he now shoots assignments in Los Angles, and occasionally reminisces about his time on the hippie commune. Some clients include Adidas, Converse, Microsoft, Subaru, Bloomberg, and New York Times.