“I wanted to tell a story of loss, love, intimacy and the space in between,” says photographer Aaron Stern, whose subjects are given haunting prominence in his second book, I Woke Up In My Clothes. Stern lives between New York and Los Angeles, and his new book meshes the empty desolation of the East Coast after Hurricane Sandy with the quotidian yet somehow surreal landscapes of downtown Los Angeles, injecting bright flashes of vitality and warmth into every shot. “I am mostly attracted to how the light affects color,” says Stern, whose raw images have appeared in Rolling Stone, Vogue and Dazed & Confused. The book also features his poetry alongside prose from revered writers David Wagoner and Rich Appel. “I wanted the project to flow like a visual narrative to capture the emotions that overtake us as we go in and out of relationships. I was attracted to the landscapes in this book mostly because I was alone at that time.”

I Woke Up In My Clothes by Aaron Stern is published by Damiani on March 31.