We're older now. The fashion district is louder than Moorpark, California, but for some reason, it still whispers the same way. The neon reflects off the rain-slick streets, and it reminds me of driving too fast down the canyon roads with the windows down, yelling songs we’d half-forgotten. Say a prayer for Moorpark, California—where we learned to chase light without knowing it.
Mitchell Royel snapped these photos beneath a thicket of billboards and banners—don’t judge me, Sarah, you know how he is—and La Roux’s In For The Kill pulsed through the concrete. It’s different from back then, but maybe it was always supposed to be. And when he raised the camera and said “Don’t move,” I didn’t.
Fashion District by way of Moorpark. Still saying yes first. Still figuring it out.
Some people change your life slowly.
Sarah did it in an afternoon.
NOTHING BUT TIME
It was 2009. Moorpark, California. We were young, broke, and completely unbothered by either.
We had no plan. No schedule. No one waiting on us.
Just a vintage SLR, a few rolls of cheap film, and the whole town to wander.
So we wandered.
Down High Street. Along the train tracks. Out past the edge of town where the hills turned gold and dry and the sky felt too big for a place that small.
We walked until our feet hurt. Then we walked some more.
SHE SAW SOMETHING
I didn't know what I was doing back then.
Sarah did.
Pink-tipped blonde hair. A striped cardigan in navy, mustard, green, and red. Denim overalls rolled at the ankles. Silver rings on almost every finger. That camera always in her hands, like it was part of her.
She'd stop in the middle of a sidewalk and say, "Wait. Stand there."
I'd stand there.
She'd say, "Don't move."
I'd move anyway.
She'd laugh and shoot it anyway.
Those were my first professional photos. I didn't know they were professional. I just knew someone was finally looking at me like I was worth looking at.
EXPERIMENTS
Nothing was off limits.
Light leaks. Blown-out sunsets. Blurry frames we swore were "artistic." Half the roll ruined. The other half PERFECT.
We tried everything once. Some things twice.
We didn't call it creative direction. We didn't call it anything. It was just two kids with too much time and not enough fear.
That's the part I miss most.
Not the photos.
The fearlessness.
THEN CAME THE STAGE
In 2010, Crowd Nine performed for the first time. Ever.
Sarah choreographed it.
Sarah styled it.
Sarah stood in the wings and believed in it before anyone else did, including me.
She knew where I should stand. How I should turn. When to hold still, and when to let it all go.
Every step on that stage started on a sidewalk in Moorpark, with her saying "Wait. Stand there."
THE PRINTS
Years later, in 2026, we finally pulled those memories off the shelf and made them real.
New prints.
Same faces.
Sarah, cross-legged on a rumpled bed, camera in her lap, grinning like she knows something you don't. Me beside her in a gray beanie and a beat-up denim jacket, arm around her shoulder, laughing so hard my eyes close.
String lights glowing on the wall. Vinyl records hung like trophies. That warm orange light bleeding in at the edges, the way old film always does.
It looks like a moment from last week.
It's not. It's from a lifetime ago.
But it feels like yesterday. Every time.
WHAT I OWE HER
People ask how I got started.
The honest answer is simple: someone saw me before I saw myself.
Sarah gave me my first photos. My first stage. My first real sense that I could be something.
I owe her everything.
Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet, permanent way. The kind of debt you don't pay back. You just carry it with you and try to deserve it.
STILL WANDERING
We're older now. The town has changed. So have we.
But some things stay the same.
We still don't need a plan.
We still trust the frame.
We still say yes first and figure it out later.
And when she lifts that camera and says "Don't move"...
This time, I don’t
The Dynamic Duo. Moorpark, 2009. Printed 2026. Still going.
-Mitchell Royel