Sunset, Isla Vista, California by Liz Kuball

Sunshine and palm trees, long stretches of highways and beaches, California is many things to many people. None the least, it's a western outpost, a land of milk and honey, Steinbeck's promised state of epic stories in East of Eden. Like the Trasks and the Hamiltons, generations have immigrated and emigrated to CA, fleeing past lives and loves and searching for something better for themselves and their families. Full of allusions and illusions, the destination may or may not be exactly what one's searching for. Photographer Liz Kuball knows this well, she writes:

When you move out to California from back east, you come for a reason: You're leaving behind a bad relationship, or escaping your hometown, or thinking you'll be a star. And what you find when you get here is that things aren't what you thought they'd be... And you'd think that, after all this, you'd become disillusioned and go back home, and some do, of course, but many more of us stay and instead of growing bitter, we hang on — hang on to a world that, to us, is even more fantastic than the one we thought we'd find, because it's real in its absurdity and because we have stories to tell.

In her series California Vernacular, she's found and documented CA's reoccurring themes of both personal and grand proportions, a visual equivalent to literature. For her HHS! entry, Kuball shared with us a few examples: an orange tree, heavy with fruit, dripping from the other side of someone else's fence, the odd manifestations of best efforts to manicure lawns, and in Sunset, Isla Vista, California (above) evidence of endless vistas and opportunities cropping up in the most unlikely place — on an apartment building with a For Rent sign, large and blocky, edging out blinding light.

Kuball is no stranger to fiction, she has masters degrees in both literature and writing, learning along the way that she was really a photographer. Her debt to schools has not gone to waste, her blog provides good reading fodder, especially for fellow HHS! contenders. If you're still putting your entry together (do it fast, you're running out of time!) or are wondering what it's like to pick just three images for a very discriminating panel, read Liz's post from two Sundays ago, Status Report. Then cross your fingers and hold your breath with the rest of us!