In Plain Sight: A Border Wall Photo Project

Documenting Both Sides

This project follows the U.S.–Mexico border wall as it appears across multiple sites along the California–Mexico line.

The work spans both sides of the divide: Mexicali, Tijuana, and Tecate in Mexico, and Calexico, Jacumba, Campo, San Ysidro, and Imperial Beach in the United States.

I approached these places by foot, by car, and sometimes at great distance — drawn to moments where the wall intersects with infrastructure, play, and the rhythms of daily life.

Too often, the wall is only shown from one side. The imbalance in how it’s seen and experienced reflects deeper inequalities. On the Mexico side, the wall runs through neighborhoods and workspaces, visible and constant. On the U.S. side, it often remains distant or hidden. That imbalance — the privilege of awareness — is one of the wall’s quiet violences. For those who live beside it, it shapes daily routines. For those farther away, it can fade from consciousness.

This project resists that erasure. It also aims to counter the narrow lens through which many people in the United States are taught to view the border. I hope to offer images that humanize the Mexico side, reflecting community, resilience, and creativity — not criminalization or cliché.

Movement, and the Lack Thereof

Mobility was another key force behind this project. One of my guides in Mexicali was imprisoned and deported, and can no longer return to see his family in the United States. Another, in Tijuana, has never crossed the border — despite working steps away from it nearly every day.

Their inability to cross, contrasted with my ability to do so freely, became central to how I approached the work. It shaped how I moved through these spaces and what I chose to see.

Not Sensational, but Witness

This is not a project about sensational crossings — or lack thereof. It is an act of attention, focused on the overlooked.

In Mexicali, a pig farmer has incorporated the wall as the fourth side of his pigpen. In Campo, abandoned trains sit stranded on tracks that once connected nations, now surrounded by peaceful countryside, far from any functioning station.

At Border Field State Park, where the wall runs into the Pacific, the closure of Friendship Park has driven people away — and birds have taken over the shore. When I walked there alone, their response was territorial, even angry at me, clearly accustomed to not having to deal with humans.

Helicopters pass overhead or trucks and ATVs drive by operated by border patrol in areas that feel otherwise untouched — quiet dirt roads, hiking paths, or pockets of nature where their presence becomes surreal.

And at the pedestrian entry to Tijuana, barbed wire was recently added in 2025 and is excessive to the point of feeling confusing. Still technically on U.S. land, this section is meant to intimidate. But whom does it aim to scare?

Resilience, Art, and Adaptation

While the wall represents pain and power, it also becomes a site of resourcefulness and resistance.

In Playas de Tijuana, artists have transformed it into a kind of open-air museum. Families gather there. Couples pose for photos. The wall becomes not just a barrier, but a canvas — painted, intervened upon, even celebrated.

And across Mexico, people have adapted — using the wall as a fence, a shade, a point of reference. These gestures, large and small, speak to the resilience and creativity that persists in its shadow.

The Ecological Toll

I’ve only just begun to photograph the wall’s environmental impact. Through a contact with the Bureau of Land Management, I learned of wall segments near Ocotillo that block not just people but also water, wind, and wildlife — causing flooding and forcing animals into unnatural migration patterns.

Any future funding I receive will support this next phase of the work, expanding its environmental scope.

A Woman Photographer, Bearing Witness

As a woman photographer — often overlooked professionally — I am especially attuned to how power operates in any space, whether public or private. My goal is to tune into what others pass over, and I move through these environments with care.

In many of the places I photograph, professional cameras are met with suspicion. These are not tourist areas. In communities already subjected to heavy surveillance, a camera can feel like yet another form of control. And as phone photography becomes more common, professional cameras draw attention — and sometimes discomfort.

Because of this, I sometimes photograph discreetly, shooting from the hip when necessary. I do not direct or interfere. I try my best not to reduce people to single stories. My goal is to reflect complexity and respect — even, and especially, in fleeting moments.

What the Wall Means

Ultimately, this work asks not just what the wall is, but what it does. It enforces inequality between nations and between individuals who move through space with radically different freedoms.

It alters landscapes, daily habits, ecological patterns — and yet people continue to live, adapt, resist, and create beside it.

These photographs are a record of that contradiction.

This Work Is Ongoing — Get Involved

This selection of images represents just one part of a larger and ongoing body of work. I plan to continue photographing the border as funding and support allow.

If you are a curator, editor, journalist, or funder interested in supporting this project, I invite you to get in touch

Mexico (Mexicali) — A pig farmer stands against the border wall.

United States (Jacumba) — A small-town playground next to a San Diego County library sits under the U.S. flag, with chain-link and the border wall beyond, a rural space for play marked by the presence of division.

Mexico (Tijuana) — At the point where the wall meets the Pacific, a musician takes a break, commerce and community persisting at the literal edge of two nations.

Mexico (Mexicali) — A woman peers from her doorway as a stop sign marks the street corner.

United States (Calexico) — Signs hang over the shaded walkway: “Casa de Cambio — Pesos & Dólares”— currency exchange and low-cost services clustered steps from the border crossing.

Mexico (Tijuana) — Two young girls dash across a quiet neighborhood street as the wall winds over the hills toward the ocean, a constant horizon to their everyday motion.

United States (San Ysidro) — A family walks through the outlet lot beneath an H&M sign, the wall’s steel frame rising just beyond, while a Border Patrol vehicle looms in the distance.

Mexico (Tijuana) — A couple embraces at Playas de Tijuana where the mural project by Lizbeth de la Cruz Santana stretches across the steel. One painted face behind them appears to watch the kiss, layering intimacy with an unsettling gaze from the wall itself.

Mexico (Tijuana) — A family gathers to take in a painted part of the wall at Playas de Tijuana where the mural project by Lizbeth de la Cruz Santana is displayed, among work from many other artists.

Mexico (Tijuana) – Directly outside the Abelardo L. Rodríguez International Airport, a section of Alejandra Phelts’ mural “Mujeres Pájaro” (“Bird Women”) shows a ballerina’s profile caught between the steel bars. Razor wire curls above, framing her movement in confinement and underscoring the tension between flight and restriction at the border wall.

Mexico (Tijuana) – A Pride flag ripples from a seaside terrace at Playas de Tijuana, looking out over the Pacific where the fence extends into the water. On the horizon, the towers of Coronado, CA stand clear, with the skyline of downtown San Diego visible further to the left. The flag’s rainbow colors stand as a symbol of resilience and visibility, asserting inclusion in a space otherwise defined by division.

United States (Calexico) — A tractor tills dry soil on the U.S. side, while the skyline of Mexicali rises in the background. Agriculture and industry face each other across the divide.

United States (Imperial Beach) — Marsh grass bends under the coastal wind beside a sign reading “Leaving City of Imperial Beach,” where civic boundary meets national border.

United States (Border Field State Park, San Diego) — On the empty U.S. beach, vehicle tracks mark the sand while a seabird drifts over the fence to Playas de Tijuana; through the slats, the crowded Mexican shoreline is in view.

Mexico (Playas de Tijuana) — Evening strollers enjoy family time as the wall looms along the promenade, the barrier absorbed into the rhythm of neighborhood life.

Mexico (Mexicali) — Vendors set up their stalls beside the port of entry, positioned to reach drivers waiting in line to cross. On this scorching day, the lanes stand empty — the heat too heavy for a crowd.

United States (San Ysidro Port of Entry) — Pedestrians move through a fenced, razor-wire corridor toward giant letters reading “MEXICO,” their steps choreographed by the architecture of crossing.

Mexico (Mexicali) — Alberto, Mexico-born, immigrated to the United States and lived there for two decades before deportation. After re-entering the U.S. without papers, he was captured and imprisoned for seven years. Here he stands, a portrait of persistence and consequence.

United States (Calexico) — In the outlet parking lot, a woman shields herself from the sun with a blanket over her head on the backdrop of the wall.

Mexico (Tijuana) — A boy shoots hoops alone in a suburban neighborhood in Tijuana with the border fence visible in the distance.