Comstock's magazine 0519 - May 2019 | Page 64

n photo essay On photographer Terence Duffy’s first morning driving through a neigh- borhood in Paradise, he saw the remnants of two trampolines and imag- ined children bouncing over the fence looking at each other. He passed scorched swimming pools where celebrations likely happened. “You can kind of build these stories of what might have been,” Duffy says. That night he returned to his motel room and started touching things around him, like a bed and chair. “How does something like this disappear?” he recalls thinking. “So I was touching everything and feeling how tactile it was. Then I went to go wash my face and saw how much soot was on me and I looked in the mirror, and I just lost it.” 64 comstocksmag.com | May 2019