Los Angeles-based photographer Daniel Malikyar has documented quite a range of characters throughout his career — from Lil Yachty to little footballers in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. His latest series, however, may be one of the most peculiar. Located in California’s Central Valley, the Afghan-American photographer and co-founder of MGX CREATIVE travelled to meet a community of nuns who specialize in growing cannabis.
Weed and nuns are rarely, if ever, associated to one another, but it was a fitting title for Malikyar’s latest photo exploration. The self-ordained nuns are an activist group on a mission to heal the world through plant-based medicine. “The sisters have been trying to legalize their business for years,” Malikyar tells Hypeart, “but local lawmakers have made it difficult for them – so their operations are happening illegally, and they could be shut down at any time. When it comes to their products (only referred to as medicine) each step of the process is scheduled to the cycles of the moon, so my visit was timed to photograph both a planting and harvesting ceremony of their cannabis crop.”
Armed with shotguns and taking rips out of various smoking paraphernalia, the scenes Malikyar captured looks like something out of a movie. “As a photographer, I love connecting with people from all walks of life and capturing their spirit through photographs that tell a deeper story,” Malikyar added. “This series features a candid mixture of documentary-style scenes and impromptu portraits of moments that caught my eye.”
Malikyar has previously worked with a range of talent in the music industry, including overseeing DJ-producer Marshmello’s content strategy, as well as overseeing global campaigns for Google, PlayStation and Levi’s. While each of his previous projects were monumental in scale, it was on the road at dawn, en route to meet the Weed Nuns — a quirky story that he just decided to chase further — that gave the photographer “a feeling that I live for.”
