AS YOU might imagine, there are numerous pictorial books about Los Angeles, each striving to in some way to fix L.A. within the borders of the frame. One of the newer photo studies, LA Day/LA Night is an aeriel examination of Los Angeles in diptych. Photographer Michael Light takes on Los Angeles infamous bright, astringent light in an attempt to look at the city as if through an unblinking stare. He juxtaposes that "telling" with images that are shot after the sun has disappeared from the sky and thus exposes Los Angeles' other face, that shimmering sparkling blanket of light.
From the book description:
The greater Los Angeles area covers 4,850 square miles—the size of a small country—and holds almost 18 million people. Perhaps America's most massive human creation, it has been legendarily vilified and celebrated in equal measure since its inception. Is Los Angeles the face of the apocalypse, or an ultimate paradise at continent's edge—or both? With LA Day / LA Night, Radius Books continues photographer Michael Light's ongoing aerial examination of the arid American West by bringing together two opposing views of the city in a double volume set.
LA Day stares directly into the sun, washing the metropolis in blasted, relentlessly specific light. LA Night drifts over it in an ever-darkening electric dream, until the vast city below reverses and begins to signify the starry night sky vaulted above. Referencing Ed Ruscha, Peter Alexander, Julius Schulman, and writers from Philip K. Dick to Raymond Chandler, LA Day / LA Night continues Los Angeles' rich cultural legacy of examining its favorite schizophrenic subject—itself.
Note the Raymond Chandler and Julius Schulman references (Schulman shot the Case Study House photo some of you received in your envelope).
Also, the introduction was written by our recent guest, David L. Ulin.
-- L.G.
(photo: from the book la day/la night)
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