Werner Amann's This Feels Safe takes the reader on a hypnotic trip through the ocean and desert habitats of California and Mexico: crashing waves, acid-coloured cacti, faces of friends pressed close to the sand and jagged rock formations, while a military helicopter hovers low overhead. Shared intimacy appears in prayer and in beach parties with colourful plastic bottles. The book brings together photographs made over three years, moving between portraiture, documentary and essay, with four texts by the author. It treats encounter as a way of being in the world, where the primordial, the synthetic, the soulful and the technological meet, with fire, earth, ocean and air pulsing through the images alongside recurring moments of ritual and touch.