Warm Light From the Other Side of the World

I went through Nicole Ganker’s entire Instagram and came out the other side feeling genuinely inferior in ways that are probably healthy to confront occasionally. She’s based in Melbourne and her life appears to consist entirely of being beautiful in various outdoor settings—festivals half-dressed, beaches, mountains, jungle, campsites lit by golden hour while she and her friends look like they’ve never once sat alone at a desk wondering if they should order food or just eat cereal again.

The photographer is Alexis Sisely, also from Melbourne, and her Sticks & Stones portfolio suggests a life roughly as sun-drenched as her subject’s—surfing, driving a van into the remotest parts of Australia, generally existing outside rather than under artificial light. The photos of Nicole have that warmth built in. Easy physicality, open sky, the sense that everyone in the frame has somewhere worth going.

I ordered a salami and mushroom pizza with extra cheese and settled in for season three of Riverdale in my underwear. This is also a life. I told myself the heating made it feel vaguely Australian. The pizza arrived and it did not.