Desert X turns the Coachella Valley into a scattered art-scavenger-hunt every installation, with large-scale works planted across the desert for visitors to seek out. Scott and Paul, two Los Angeles-based producers who work on shows like Modern Family, chose the mirrored Mirage House installation as the setting for their family portrait session — a natural fit, since the piece already plays with reflection, landscape, and light in ways that make for striking photography.
The mirrored surfaces of the house threw back distorted, layered reflections of the surrounding mountains, giving us compositions we don’t get anywhere else — portraits where the desert itself becomes part of the frame twice over. We scheduled an early sunrise session to beat both the crowds and the heat, and Palm Springs cooperated with something rare for the desert: real clouds scattered across the sky, adding texture and depth to every shot.
Scott and Paul use their Palm Springs home as a retreat from the pace of the entertainment industry, and that unhurried, relaxed energy came through in the session. It’s a great example of how a single art installation, timed right, can turn a family portrait session into something that feels genuinely unique to the desert.
