Work In Progress: Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, 11-18-12
Early morning light would be held back until mid-morning, but wanting to work on Sunset was bigger than the weather report. Partly cloudy skies left light rain the night before which I drove north through from San Diego. Sunset Boulevard reflects its subtle changes; if you look. Advertisements are renewed for the branding of new desires and old ones the culture shapers do not want you to forget.
It’s all around, the meaning of life along Sunset, and It’s easy to read because it shouts at you in LARGE Helvetica type.
Coffee houses are filling-up and the traffic thickens which chokes you away from your work as a photographer.
Late morning arrives and the clouds part a bit to let directional light boldify facts, and in my mind’s eye I begin to develop the negatives made on this trip.
Do the photographs push forward the meaning for making them or, have I covered this subject with no reason to expose another frame; am I chasing its twilight.
When do you know you have wrestled the truth to the ground and pinned it? Is it truth that throws in the towel or does the photographer decide there is no more of it hiding in his subject. It has been for me almost a year photographing Sunset Boulevard; a project like no other I have worked on. Rather than grandiose individual photographs of great resolve, I have made a hundred small cuts into this street, absorbing its stain into my reality, my camera.
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