On Dec. 31, 2024, Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband touched down in Nassau, Bahamas, to have fun their forty third anniversary and her current retirement from educating pictures for 20 years. One week later, the Eaton Fire burned down their dwelling.
“I not only lost my home, but I lost all my equipment and my photo studio,” mentioned the founding father of Altadena Photographers, a volunteer-driven group created to assist creatives get better from the Eaton Fire. “We were trapped in the Bahamas. My son kept telling us, don’t come back to LA. There’s no place to live. He was also displaced. In February, I started to formulate the organization and by the time I came back on March 11, it was already in full swing.”
“I decided to start the organization because I was looking online at what was happening in our community, and I saw that Brandon Jay had started Altadena Musicians,” she continued. “I know that I’m not the only photographer in Altadena. I know I’m not the only artist in Altadena. I commented on a post he made, and I said, who’s taking care of the photographers? And he said, why don’t you? I took him up on the challenge.”
After Brandon Jay helped her safe fiscal sponsorship from Creative Visions Foundation, step one was to gather gear from individuals who now not wanted it to provide to those that did. Samy’s Camera was instrumental at the beginning in getting Canon cameras and lenses into photographer’s fingers.
“My initial interest was for you to give me whatever you’re not using, and a lot of people were not using their film cameras,” she defined. “Your grandpa’s camera, your dad’s camera that you’re not using, give it to Altadena Photographers, and I’m sure that we could find some use for it. It started as an exchange. The idea was that it would be like Facebook Marketplace or a BuyNothing group but for photography gear.”
Then the asks began to transcend cameras, or what she calls the second layer of giving, which incorporates computer systems, lighting tools, tripods and digicam luggage. An individual with a digital digicam expressed that they might not see their pictures. Nicholls-Ali reached out to somebody who was updating their firm’s computer systems and donating their previous ones, and Altadena Photographers obtained 30 computer systems for the group. She is presently working with a pal in San Jose who simply up to date the computer systems in his lab. She hopes to donate his previous ones to a college that was destroyed in Altadena.
“The community needs everything,” she mentioned.
On Oct. 25, 2025, Altadena Photographers hosted a Vintage Camera Show on the Altadena Library. The inspiration got here from an area whose father, who had an in depth Kodak assortment, handed away. She despatched Nicholls-Ali 4 gigantic containers of digicam gear.
“We had about 250 people come through the door, and I gave away 100 vintage cameras,” mentioned Nicholls-Ali. “I also gave away about 50 modern cameras. It was your quintessential giveaway. You see something on the table you like, take it. Take what you need. Take what you want. My heart is open to our community.”
Some of the native featured photographers within the present had been Marcus Ubungen, Sunny Mills, Sam Richardson, Laura H Parker, Amanda Nevarez and Julia Rae Moquin.
“It was really interesting because people were coming up to me saying, this is the camera that my dad had that I lost in the fire,” she shared. “This is a camera that was in my house when I was 10 years old. Now I have it again. People were in tears. A lot of people were coming up to me thanking me for the memory that it restored in them, which was really a beautiful experience for me, because I know what that felt like.”
Nicholls-Ali’s dad was an beginner photographer who at all times took pictures of the household at Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving. She misplaced his cameras within the Eaton Fire. They had been the one factor she inherited from him when he handed.
“I’m from Barbados, so whenever relatives would come visit us, it was always, lineup everybody, let’s take a picture,” she mentioned. “I’m a gearhead like my dad. He never let me use his cameras. I used to break into his closet when he was out and play with them and then put them back.”
Altadena Photographers created an app, the place folks can register their wants and browse what donors have added; nevertheless, Nicholls-Ali has seen that individuals prefer to make human connections.
“Someone came over this week with professional lighting equipment,” she defined. “And I said, why didn’t you put it on the app? And she said, ‘I really wanted to make a connection. I’m also a fire survivor. I’m losing my studio; the lease is up and I can’t afford it. I want to make sure that equipment gets somewhere safe.’”
Next up, Altadena Photographers is collaborating in The Eaton Fire Collaboratory’s Black History Month Exhibit to have fun Black excellence locally.
On the ultimate Tuesday of 2025, Nicholls-Ali was watching the Phoenix parade float honoring the lives misplaced within the Eaton Fire being embellished for the Rose Parade when she noticed a 9-year-old boy holding a digital digicam. He was fastidiously manipulating the digicam in order that he may get pictures of the flowers.
“I love that,” she mentioned. “Because for a 9-year-old to stop the world in a shot is significant. It means that this kid is seeing something. He wants to capture it. He wants to create something from what he sees and that is major, especially with all that’s happening in the world and how fast things are. Life seems disposable. What has always been my passion about photography is not only teaching photography, but viewing photography and communicating with other photographers. How we’re able to capture or participate in the world in a way that might be different than most people who just walk by a scene. We’re trying to capture something. We’re trying to embed meaning into what we see, and it’s another level of creativity that I’m fascinated by.”
For extra data, go to altadenaphotographers.org.