09.17.2011: ANOTHER LOS ANGELES

So not to toot my own horn or anything, but I’ve always felt that LA looks best when it’s overcast. Maybe it’s my inner Shirley Manson, maybe it’s my propensity for muted tones, maybe it’s that I really love layering, but there’s just something about a grey sky and flat lighting that pulls the landscape of this sprawled out, architecturally incohesive city together for me. And, well, apparently I’m not the only one.

David Ash’s latest collection of photos, Another Place, depicts a Los Angeles that is a far cry from its stereotypical representations – yknow, blondes, palm trees, sunshine – to focus on a side of this city simultaneously familiar to its locals and completely alien. In Ash’s LA, there is little to no movement besides fog rolling through the streets, though all of these images are taken a little too East for this to actually happen. The only cars are parked, and there are absolutely no people. It doesn’t even seem that there has been recent human activity; there is hardly any trash, even in the images taken of Downtown. Ok I just noticed a couple of flyers beneath a truck’s windshield wipers, so this world is not quite the first week in a Life After People episode, but it’s close.

One of the images that’s gotten the most “WTF?”s has been an almost surreal image of the Hollywood Reservoir. Not only does it look like a (natural) lake nestled in lush, green mountains amongst images of a cold, desolate city, but it’s taken from an angle that not even those who see this tiny body of water in the Hollywood Hills on a daily basis are familiar with – it seems to be taken from the reservoir itself. The only clue that gives away its location is a tiny Hollywood sign peaking through the thick layers of clouds. And the light bulb goes off.

Each of the prints are from editions of 7. They are $2,100 unframed and $2,500 framed. Another Place will be on display at TENOVERSIX until late December 2011.

Article originally published on the TENOVERSIX blog.