LONE PINE
Andrew Friendly
Photographer Andrew Friendly is a frequent visitor to Lone Pine, California. This time, he’s taking us with him.
This series offers a reverent, portrait-like study of trees, presenting them as dignified beings in their own right. Each image treats its subject with the quiet intensity often reserved for human portraiture—highlighting the photographer’s care and intention. The trees appear stoic and timeless, inviting viewers to regard these trees as individuals—each with its own character, age, and story.
Lone Pine sits in the Owens Valley along U.S. Route 395, a scenic highway that connects travelers to some of the most dramatic landscapes in the eastern Sierra Nevada. To the west, the jagged peaks of the Sierra, including Mount Whitney—the tallest mountain in the contiguous U.S.—rise sharply, while to the east lie the vast, arid expanses of Death Valley National Park. This unique position creates stark environmental contrasts: alpine forests of pine trees, including the iconic Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines, grow on the higher elevations, while desert scrub and salt flats dominate the valley floor. The area’s pines thrive in cooler, well-drained soils along the foothills and are vital to local biodiversity.
Find more stories in Arxipelag Volume I
Andrew Friendly
Andrew Friendly is a fashion/documentary photographer based between Los Angeles and New York.
Between the ages of 11 and 14, when he first picked up a camera, Andrew only made pictures of nature; flowers, plants, trees, insects, animals, and bodies of water were this main subjects. From a young age he felt deeply attuned to the patterns and beauty that he observed in his natural surroundings. To this day, Andrew’s main source of inspiration derives from the flora and fauna on Earth – often implementing nature as a muse in his fashion photography practice. Sometimes he’ll ask his subjects to bend their bodies in the way a tree or plant might fall naturally.
“Without studying the sublime way that the natural world sits, I would have nothing to draw from to build compositions in my personal work or my professional practice.”
