Mystic Prints by Foster The Explorer

07/25/2023

I had a blast shooting the XGames over the weekend! As a young teenager I dabbled in skateboarding, BMX, aggressive inline, and snowboarding, I was the prime age for the release of the first games in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, and I spent my middle school years covering my bedroom walls with clippings from Transworld Magazine. So, to have the opportunity to photograph these insane athletes was a dream come true!

Slide 7 shows 13-year-old Arisa Trew celebrating after landing the first ever competition 720 for the women’s vert event. She won gold with 10-year-old Reese Nelson bringing home silver. These are just kids!

And the final diptych features Gui Khury, a 14-year-old skateboarding star who won the gold medal in the vert event. Absolutely wild!

What was also wild? Seeing the legend, Tony Hawk, *competing* against these teenagers at age 55. I never thought I’d see him skate so that was an unexpected treat!

XGames California shot for .

06/30/2023

06/17/2023

One of my intentions for Lucidity Festival this year was to photograph the healing spaces. To do that I knew I needed consent from both the healer and the client. So I waited patiently for a booth to clear and spoke to one of the Reiki healers, Tiger, about photographing their next session. Thankfully I was welcomed with an open heart.

I honestly didn’t expect such a powerful session, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that, even in the middle of a chaotic music festival, true healing can be achieved when the right energies come together.

These are some words from Tiger about their experience:

“My experience with the healing sanctuary at Lucidity was absolutely phenomenal. It was so wonderful to have a sacred container where you could come back home to your sense of centeredness and groundedness.

I thought it was beautiful how we could have very deep and potent healing sessions pretty much openly in the middle of a loud and rambunctious festival with a lot of other different vibrations going on, but we were kind of in our own portal in our own safe space to really be present with our clients. The vibration with all the healers together and all of the offerings together was so immaculate, loving, and nurturing.” -

Photos from 2023 at Great Oak Campground in Santa Barbara, California.

06/03/2023

Lucidity: The Great Synthesis...my gallery is live! Amongst all the smiles and dirty dance floor moments, in this gallery you'll also find a handful of smaller stories that I photographed around the festival. Starting with the Opening Ceremony I also discovered small, but powerful healing ceremonies, spent time in the tea lounge, and even experienced a sound bath in a hot air balloon!

This year, more than any other year at Lucidity, was one that allowed me to regain motivation and fulfillment with my work through the energy of my fellow media members (or, nectar collectors as we say in the Media Hive). There were a lot of new faces on the team this year, and those faces were wide-eyed and overjoyed. If I'm honest, I had lost some of that spark somewhere in the craziness of working over 50 festivals. So, to see people on the team hungry for creating fun, unique content brought motivation to my being. I left the festival feeling like I was truly part of the family!

A little bit of vulnerability, I spent my entire Thursday handling issues with my bus. I parked it at the festival and decided to change positioning on my leveling blocks, but the bus was stuck in Park...I couldn't shift into gear. And it was also very precariously positioned. The situation was stressing me out and making it difficult for me to find my photo flow. I didn't feel comfortable moving around inside the bus to the point where I made Ruby help me to move the mattress outside for us to sleep under our canopy. It wasn't *that* cold. Thankfully, the next day, the head of site operations told me the bus was stable enough to not worry, and that allowed me to breathe calmly once again. I also knew a very talented mechanic/DPW-seasoned burner on site who helped me get Mystic moving on Monday. Lots of gratitude to Pytrbob and the Lucidity production team!

All that aside, I'm very excited to be sharing this gallery as I believe it represents a slight shift in my festival work pulling away from "overall coverage" and moving towards documentary story-telling (a direct pull from my photojournalism roots). Enjoy!

Amongst all the smiles and dirty dance floor moments, in this gallery from Lucidity you'll also find a handful of smaller stories that I photographed around the festival. Starting with the Opening Ceremony I also discovered small, but powerful healing ceremonies, spent time in the tea lounge, and even experienced a sound bath in a hot air balloon!

This year, more than any other year at Lucidity, was one that allowed me to regain motivation and fulfillment with my work through the energy of my fellow media members (or, nectar collectors as we say in the Media Hive). There were a lot of new faces on the team this year, and those faces were wide-eyed and overjoyed. If I'm honest, I had lost some of that spark somewhere in the craziness of working over 50 festivals. So, to see people on the team hungry for creating fun, unique content brought motivation to my being. I left the festival feeling like I was truly part of the family!

I'm very excited to be sharing this gallery as I believe it represents a slight shift in my festival work pulling away from "overall coverage" and moving towards documentary story-telling (a direct pull from my photojournalism roots). Enjoy!

05/26/2023

Sometimes wacky things happen at festivals. Especially in the desert. Sometimes I’m in position to get the shot and sometimes I’m not. Last weekend at my 9th I regretfully missed the opportunity to photograph an epic desert lightning storm while a DJ playing in the rain under a sea of umbrellas at an intimate stage Friday night…BUT I was there for this magical rainbow Sunday afternoon 🌈 I may or may not have done a rain dance that morning 😁

The sequence of events was a lesson in “you can’t capture everything” and “I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.” More photos coming soon!

07/21/2022

Photos from Joshua Tree Music Festival this past spring!

Two sets by the California Honeydrops, Cimafunk, some Thumpasaurus craziness, a gong show with Pierette, Alyssa DeCaro's Shake Your Asana class, High Vibrational Breathwork with Jenn Parma, and a lot of random moments showcasing the wonderful JTree festival community!

04/23/2021

After 18 months Joshua Tree Music Festival is hosting live music for a real audience again!! They’re single night, outdoor, limited capacity, pod-based concerts that are sure to be one of the most joyous events since the word Covid first came across our newsfeeds. And to kick it off we have Steve Poltz performing tonight and tomorrow night at the JTree festival grounds. As you can see in these photos from JTMF 2018, Steve is known for his crowd work...it will be interesting to see how he handles that given the current restrictions, but I’m soooooo excited to see some friends, and dance, and photograph the faces of those who have missed live music the most :)

02/15/2021

Layers of light. I’m counting 11 🌟

For whatever reason my friend and former roommate chose the day with 50mph winds to come visit. We couldn’t build a fire for lunch, but we did go on a fun hike with dramatic clouds!

12/30/2020

Instead of just going to the grocery store I continued another 10 minutes into the mountains, and what a sight!! It’s hard to believe I live an hour and a half from Los Angeles haha

12/22/2020

Happy Winter Solstice/Christmas Star/Great Conjunction!
Sometimes, a plan works out perfectly. And I do mean sometimes. I drove past this dead Joshua Tree two months ago, and immediately saw the reindeer shape in its carcass. I practically jumped out of my seat! And, apparently I’m not the only one who saw it because when I went back it had been dressed up with a nose, scarf, and a googly eye.
Unfortunately, the reindeer was to the east and the Christmas Star was to the west...a perfect opportunity to test the multiple exposure features of the Canon R6! This image is comprised of two photos combined into one in camera. I made the reindeer image with a wide angle lens, then grabbing my telephoto lens, and spun around to get a second shot (a closeup) of the planets. The second photo has to be composed EXTREMELY PRECISELY since the camera overlays the reindeer photo automatically, and spits out one final image. At 800mm I was able to get enough distance between the two planets to have Jupiter land as a blip on the Rudolph’s nose, and Saturn on its eye. Perfect alignment! 🎅🏼🌟
Photo by: Foster Snell
This photo is for sale on my site (link in bio), and my holiday sale is still running! 10% off storewide

12/07/2020

🐶🐶🐶
Want to give this photo as a gift to your walls? You can order it in a frame, on canvas, or even as a small 4x6 print to add to your holiday cards 🌟 10% off ALL ORDERS through the holidays on my website.