Los Angeles’ Complex, Gleaming Facets Revealed in a New Photo Book

3 minute read

Los Angeles is a city of contrasts and contradictions, where the curving lines of the golden coast, its palm tree-dotted boulevards, challenge the harshness of the Hollywood hiking trails, and the spotless stucco townhouses of Bel Air starkly contrast the cavernous corporate alleys of Downtown. Like an iridescent kaleidoscope where the tiles change shape at each turn, Los Angeles is the vibrant, fickle sum of its very different parts – capricious, wild, indulgent, sad, roaring, sweet, complex.

A postwar Los Angeles of “extremes and dualities” is portrayed in the new photobook Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles (a spinoff of Looking at Los Angeles, both published by Metropolis Books). The pictures in this collection were captured by the lenses of more than 125 master photographers – Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jim Goldberg, Daido Moriyama to name a few – whose photographs present a “collective portrait of the city,” as Jane Brown and Marla Hamburg Kennedy, who edited the book, explain.

“Los Angeles was not as developed as it is now, there was no Downtown really,” says Jim Goldberg, referring to the mid-1980s and 90s, years when he worked on the ten-year multimedia project Raised by Wolves. “Hollywood is where kids flocked, where they could be part of the music scene and where there were drugs readily available.”

Goldberg’s portrait of the harsh reality of addiction and abuse among runaway adolescents shows a side of Los Angeles as vivid as the liberating energy of krumping dance, captured by Bruce Gilden’s lens. Los Angeles is in the irony of Elliott Erwitt’s eye as well as in the civil commitment of anti­war rallies’ captured by Charles Brittin.

Los Angeles is fiction within reality, as in Kevin Cooley’s photograph from the long­-term series Night for Night: “Found scenes are brought to life at night by light escaping from movie filming locations illuminating scenes far beyond the set’s edge,” Cooley explains. “This bright and unnatural illumination provided an eerie highlighting of the everyday, giving them an acute sense of importance. This project brought together two of my interests: the overlap of public and private spheres, and collision of natural and artificial light.”

The very idea of contrast itself is brought to the fore in David Maisel’s Oblivion 10n, a shot from a series of aerial photographs of the metropolis and its environs. “I’ve reversed the tonalities, resulting in a negative version of the city, a kind of emptied out shadowland. Themes of development as a self-generating, self-replicating force that exists outside of nature are encoded in these images, which view Los Angeles as both a specific site and as a more generalized condition.”

Angeleno photographer Dan Lopez views photography as a “hunt for hidden treasure,” and his hometown – which at turns reveals and hides its essence, is full of such riches: “L.A.’s horizontal layout perfectly resembles a virtually endless and ever-changing treasure map of transient landscapes and urban decay.”

Taken together, these many angles on Los Angeles reflect the city’s complex identity and all of its gleaming facets.

Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles is published by Metropolis Books, 2015.

Michelle Molloy, who edited this gallery, is a senior international photo editor at TIME.

Lucia De Stefani is a writer and contributor to TIME LigthBox. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Daido- Moriyama-Record- #22-2012-Both-Sides -of-Sunset-LA
Record #22, 2012.Daido Moriyama
Dennis-Stock-Planet-of-the-Apes-1967-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Planet of the Apes, 1967.Dennis Stock
Jim-Goldberg-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Untitled, 1995.“This photograph is part of a larger project called Raised by Wolves, which was a ten-year multimedia project photographing homeless street kids in San Francisco and Hollywood. [The man] was playing chicken, which is how far he could lean over the railing of the freeway before he would fall off. Right behind him was an area underneath a freeway overpass where a bunch of kids were sleeping”—Jim Goldberg Jim Goldberg
David-Maisel-Oblivion-10N-2004-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Oblivion 10N, 2004. "This image, Oblivion 10n, is from a series of aerial photographs of Los Angeles and its environs. I’ve reversed the tonalities, resulting in a negative version of the city, a kind of emptied out shadowland. Themes of development as a self-generating, self-replicating force that exists outside of nature are encoded in these images, which view Los Angeles as both a specific site and as a more generalized condition"—David Maisel David Maisel
Elliott-Erwitt-Lion-in-Car- 1956-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Lion in Car, 1956.Elliott Erwitt
Karin-Apollonia-Müller-Eastside- Merchantile-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Eastside Mercantile, 2007.Karin Apollonia Müller
Oscar-Castillo-Chicano-Moratorium-against-the-Vietnam-War-1970-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, 1970. "Thousands of people from all over the United States gathered in East Los Angeles, on August 29th of 1970, toparticipate in what began as a peaceful march and demonstrations to protest our involvement in the Vietnam War"—Oscar CastilloOscar Castillo
Dan-Lopez-Giving-Tree-2014-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Giving Tree, 2014. "I've always liked the idea of photography as a hunt for hidden treasure, and L.A.'s horizontal layout makes for a virtually endless and ever-changing treasure map of transient landscapes and urban decay. This photograph underscores a recurring theme in my observations of the city - the latent humor in the everyday"—Dan LopezDan Lopez
Alex-Prager- Julie-2007-Dan-Lopez-Giving-Tree-2014-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Julie, 2007.Alex Prager
Kevin-Cooley-Unknown-Film-Production-at-Point-Mugu- 2011-Alex-Prager- Julie-2007-Dan-Lopez-Giving-Tree-2014-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Unknown Film Production at Point Mugu, 2011. "In this long term project, which began in 2000, found scenes are brought to life at night by light escaping from movie filming locations illuminating scenes far beyond the set’s edge. This bright and unnatural illumination provided an eerie highlighting of the everyday, giving them an acute sense of importance. This project brought together two of my interests: the overlap of public and private spheres, and collision of natural and artificial light"—Kevin Cooley Kevin Cooley
Lara- Jo- Regan-Girl- Running- from- Malibu-FIres-Both Sides of Sunset-LA
Girl Running from Malibu Fires, 1993. "I was not supposed to be in the spot I took this picture. The 1993 Malibu firestorm was so fierce, even credentialed journalists were not allowed up into the hills to cover the epic blaze. I had just been disgorged from a first aid truck I had snuck a ride to the scene with when I spotted the girl in the picture, bursting out of a swanky but imminently threatened hilltop home and running right past me into a blood orange hazy hue that seemed to belong to the atmosphere of some exoplanet" —Lara Jo ReganLara Jo Regan
John-Baldesarri--Throwing-Three-balls-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-six attempts), 1973.John Baldessari
Bruce-Gilden-Krumping- 2006-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Krumping, 2006.Bruce Gilden
Charles-Brittin-Anti-war-Rallies-Century-Plaza-Hotel-1969-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Anti-war Rallies, Century Plaza Hotel, 1969.Charles Brittin
Bruce-Davidson-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA964.
Untitled, 1964.Bruce Davidson
Grant-Mudford-The-Pike-1979-from-the-series-Long-Beach-1979-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
The Pike, 1979, from the series Long Beach, 1979. "This photograph is from the Long Beach Documentary Survey Project, funded by The National Endowment for the Arts in 1979. It shows a view of some remains of The Pike, a fun park built originally in 1911. Little remains of The Pike"—Grant MudfordGrant Mudford
Steve-Kahn-The-Hollywood-Suites-1976-Both-Sides-of-Sunset-LA
Window #13, from "The Hollywood Suites", 1976. "This image is from a project that explored inside/outside experience using anonymous, stripped down rooms in old Hollywood apartments as my working space. I photographed what I saw"—Steve KahnSteve Kahn

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