Contributors

Gabriella Nissen

While shooting this month’s Born Cool, featuring a beach theme, photographer Gabriella Nissen’s thoughts turned to, of course, the beach. “During my childhood I went to Galveston almost every summer weekend with my mother. I loved floating on the gentle waves and walking on the beach picking up whole sand dollars while the wet sand squished between my toes.”

Nissen has been following the recent events in the Gulf of Mexico with concern, wondering if this is a summer to go to the beach to pick up something other than seashells. “The water in the Gulf and on the entire planet belongs to all of us. Let’s protect it and use it wisely.”

Anthony Rathbun

My plans this summer are to replace a stolen road bike by possibly building my next one. I also hope to travel overseas for the first time to Vietnam. I’ll also aim to start a personal documentary and art project (secret for now) that I hope to exhibit and eventually turn into a book.

Shyla Batliwalla

My summer plans are to road trip from Houston to San Francisco with my hubby. We plan to see Santa Fe, the Grand Canyon and my BFF in Newport Beach along the way. We just pray our AC doesn’t crap out before that. After we settle down in San Francisco we pick right up again for our overdue honeymoon in Europe. We’re taking almost two months to backpack all over Spain and Eastern Europe. We’re hitting up Greece, Croatia, Czech Republic and hopefully Turkey. Bring on the baklava!

If everything goes as planned, I’m pretty sure I’ll have one of the most memorable summers of my life. I’m stoked to miss out on the Houston heat too. (Although I’m pretty positive Southern European heat is equally as brutal.)