I first met Maya Meisner during a portfolio review at the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago in 2019. It turned out to be nothing more than a casual meeting. Meisner had a story for me and was planning to create a book telling this story in every imaginable photography medium, like a visual diary. A very personal and ominous visual diary.
Meissner told a harrowing story of how he and his family narrowly escaped a serial killer in the late 1990s—yosemite killerI was mesmerized. I couldn't wait for this true-crime scrapbook to come to life. This year, he released it – a stunning and intimate collection he named Cedar Lodge,
The best thing about this book? Its Now! Photos, then finally a brief entry of all the terms you need to know to understand Meisner's landmark event. The photography and design is so awesome that anyone will know this isn't your typical collection of photos – this is definitely a documentary of something personal and horrific.
In 1999, Cedar Lodge valet Cary Steiner murdered a woman and two children at the motel near Yosemite National Park (authorities later found another female victim). A few months before this horrific crime, Maya and her parents and sister were guests at the Cedar Lodge where, in the middle of the night, a man tried to break into their hotel room. His father shouted at the intruder and scared him away.
Meissner and her sister were kept in the dark about this almost fateful night until her mother finally revealed the family secret to her in 2014. Since then, she has been collecting articles and archival film that her parents captured from the 1999 trip. She is also capturing original photography of the present-day Yosemite landscape, the cool forest surrounding the crime scene.
After more than 10 years, Meissner's Cedar Lodge It serves as a visual compendium of that work, with careful consideration in its conception and design to be sensitive to the victims and their surviving families.
Meisner's dedication at the beginning of the book sums them all up: “To my mother for sharing her vices with me and for bravely letting me share them with the world. To my father, for being our protector and encouraging my adventures. To my sister, for being there for me through it all. And most of all, to Carol, Julie, Silvina and Joey. -Anna Goldwater Alexander