Angels


Almost everyone has some idea of what Los Angeles is, even if they've never been there. Home to Hollywood, the city churns out myth after American myth. Some see the city as a necessary part of a glamorous life — they migrate there to become stars. Others live ordinary lives and work ordinary jobs in this city of spectacle. And some see LA's darker side — east coaster Jack Kerouac famously wrote that Los Angeles is "the loneliest and most brutal of American cities." These photos highlight the oddly authentic beauty in this city of myth, however lonely and brutal, however packaged and commercial. Here, even the metallic glinting pole of exercise equipment along the shoreline, or a solitary streetlight in neon darkness, or a thrust of power lines cutting across the sky, captures something essential about the so-called "city of angels".