Hello Joni Mitchell

The man with the incredibly long beard and tiny bicycle rode up to our camp and asked if Joni Michell was with us. My first thought was Isn’t she dead? (i was thinking of Janis Joplin). I worried that the dust-covered hippy was trapped in some sort of flashback, on a doomed search for an icon of those lost decades. One thing i was certain of though, and i told him: Sorry, she isn’t here.

Of course, I was wrong.

The guys next to our camp had built an eighteen foot scaffold-platform. It gave a great view of the whole festival – you don’t have to get very high up in a flat desert formed of an ancient lake-bed to get a good vantage over everything else. So one day, at dusk, I climbed the platform, and took some photos; including this one of our camp:

Someone from one of the other camps saw me and called up to ask if she could join me. I said sure, and got ready to snap a picture of her as she pulled herself onto the platform. When she was safely on i said Hi, I’m Tom

Hi, she said, I’m Joni.

So, Joni Michell, whereever you are, hello – and here’s that picture I got of you:

I’ve got the last lot of photos back from the festival, and they’re now up at the gallery i made