Caught camping

THE PHOTOS. To investigate rumors of strange behavior involving over-packed cars, roaring fires and peculiar sleeping contrivances in remote yet semi-public settings, photographer Stefano Paltera staked out campgrounds from the Sierra to the beaches above Malibu over the Fourth of July weekend. The people he found, while often bedraggled, were far from camera shy and surprisingly open about their rituals. Said Troy Cox (on the cover with his surfboard at Thornhill Broome Beach): “The first time I came here, we couldn’t get the fire started. What you need to use is liquid hairspray in a pump.” Cover girl Cindy Tosney posed far from a hair dryer at Sequoia National Park. And Diana Murillo, captured for the cover at the same campground, confessed: “My husband has been coming here since he was 2 years old. Now he brings our kids, and hopefully the kids will continue.”