Humboldt’s Cautious Euphoria

Photographer Theo Rigby
April 20, 2012
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    When photographer Theo Rigby entered Humboldt County, he walked into a world of seemingly conflicting possibilities. It is a rural area of Northern California shadowed by the tacitly accepted trade of pot farming—an industry that everyone is sure that their economy relies on, but has no way of actually proving. Humboldt is also a unique haven for both the locally born and the surge of young artists and musicians who welcome the post-noon wake up time. Rigby’s photos capture a community making its escape to tranquility, despite the looming threat of government raids on large-scale weed farms. His subjects alternate between plaintive concern and blank-faced euphoria, as if they’ve finally found a place where they feel comfortable enough to worry a little less.

    Humboldt’s Cautious Euphoria