Windows of Beirut.

Few cities I know have as much inherent style and character as Beirut. I was lucky enough to spend a week there between November and December 2005, months before this recent spate of unluckiness began. I had long had the preconception that Beirut was a war-torn wasteland, so I was amazed when I arrived and found it to be a stylish Mediterranean enclave, with a vibrant arts culture, streets lined with hip bars, and a number of chic coffee shops. Even the simple details of the city itself seemed to have some effortless style- present in the '60s curve of the letters in a sign's shop, to the pistachio green taxis, to the careless clutter of powerlines. It all seemed to embody the attitude of the town, which has seen so much violence and destruction, but seemed to shrug it off with an ironic smile. For some reason, my adoration of the city worked itself out through my amassing a photographic collection of the town's windows. I'm not sure what they meant to me then, but hopefully they'll give you a sense of the beauty of the city. And hopefully when I return to visit, they'll all still be there.

Street Art.

When I was fifteen, I went to Europe with my parents. I remember arriving at a formal garden in Spain, and being so disappointed that all of the sculptures had been vandalized, and covered with graffiti. I had wanted to take photos, but I realized that I wouldn't be able to get a single shot of a pristine sculpture. Looking back on it, I wonder: why did I want to?

Much like I've learned to photograph billboards, I've also grown to like taking photos of street art. By street art, I mean graffiti, tagging, and sticker art (am I using the term a little too inclusively?). I mainly take photographs of street art for the same reason I photograph billboards- I like the combination of flat graphic elements in a real setting in a flat photograph, I like the way that graphic design interacts with the real world, etc. There are, of course, some questions that this photography practice raises (example: can a photograph of art also be art?).

The above photographs are from Los Angeles, and below are some photographs of street art in Copenhagen, Cape Town and Beirut. Part of the reason I take these photographs is out of an appreciation for the street art itself. Beyond that, there's a graphic element to the photographs I like- especially in the below photo of Copenhagen, in which the arrow on the street echoes the shapes on the wall. I think another thing about street art that draws me is its living quality. This may be a ridiculous comparison, but it reminds me of San rock art. I remember reading that in some sites and on some rocks, they would find rock paintings spanning from different centuries. Though done centuries apart, the pieces were set in conversation with eachother- one artist would respond to the work of another, and change the meaning of the original. In a similar way, street art is often layered, and often set in conversation- both with the work of other artists, and also the building and neighborhood in which its done.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Cape Town, South Africa

Beirut, Lebanon

Copenhagen, Denmark

Billboard photography.

I've always struggled at photographing cities. In part, I had been trained that I should crop out all 'unsightly' elements when planning a photographic composition. I took this somewhat severely, and would attempt to photograph streets and buildings so that they did not contain crowds of distracting people, signs of traffic, telephone poles and their mess of wires, and advertising billboards- the elements of a city that make it a city, basically.

This generally created very dull photos. More recently, I've been trying to strategically include those elements in my photographs. I think working billboards into the compositions has been most challenging. I've tried a few methods, like using the structures of billboards for visual or thematic contrast with the scene, or to give a sense of time and place to the photograph.

Halab, Syria

Hollywood, CA

Beirut, Lebanon
West Hollywood, CA

Maputo, Mozambique

Downtown Los Angeles, CA

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

I'm attempting to included billboards in my photographs for a few reasons. In part, I'm interested in the way that art and graphics interact with our lives, and the way that advertising creates a visual intrusion into the landscape of the city. I'm also interested in the flat, graphic nature of photographs- I try to emphasize this by including flat elements in the photograph against a shallow background, like the Air Zimbabwe billboard, which merges with the building below it against the backdrop of the sky.