L.A. DRIVE-BY
The idea of this project was to explore the city in the only possible way - by car - and to keep it artistically open and simple. Driving alone without direction or a map - like a driftwood in the sea that is moved by the currents - through the endless city, the avenues, boulevards, back alleys, freeways - turning randomly.
A kind of daily retreat with myself in an air-conditioned rental car - doors locked, windows rolled up. Confronted with obscure and dark places, the unpredictability and the giant puls of the city.
Hundreds of miles of straight mute blacktop - bumper to bumper: Vernon, Garden City, Huntington Park, Downtown, Inglewood, Torrence, Long Beach - wasteland, drive-ins, California sun, ganglands, tags, loneliness, traffic lights, on- and off ramps, a glimpse of the ocean, a dog in the desert of the city, warehouses, forbidden sidewalks, high rises, steel and glass, and shimmering in between - the endless sky.
The series was photographed in and around Los Angeles from 1996 - 2001 on Polapan35.
A book is in planning for 2017.