Orange County-based photographer Deanna Templeton is best known for her street pictures documenting everyday suburban life in Southern California and the skate and beach scene of Huntington Beach, a city where she has lived all her life. Her generous portrayal of the punks, goths, metal heads, skaters, and surfers she encounters reflects her own subcultural identity as a young person. Included in OCMA’s 2025 California Biennial: Desperate, Scared, But Social, Templeton presents over 40 photographs from her series What She Said (2001- ongoing), some scaled for the first time larger-than-life.
She and Zuckerman discuss her relationship to photography, her relationship with her husband the photographer and former professional skateboarder Ed Templeton, growing up and working in Southern California, how her practice calls into question topics of identity, body image, and female identity, how she selects the girls and women she photographs and how she approaches them, and what she would you say to her younger self!