Wednesday 29 August 2018

Venice Beach

Dotan Saguy has lived in Los Angeles since 2003. In 2015, he decided to focus on his lifelong passion for photography. He attended the Eddie Adams Workshop, the Missouri Photo Workshop and studied photojournalism at Santa Monica College. His book Venice Beach. The Last Days of a Bohemian Paradise was edited by Gail Fisher, Sr. Editor at National Geographic and the Los Angeles Times.

I’ve been to Venice Beach, “a residential, commercial, and recreational beachfront neighborhood within Los Angeles, California” according to Wikipedia, but that was almost forty years ago. I do remember similar scenes but not as spectacular as the photographs in this tome and that, I guess, has something to do with the fact that with a camera in hand one tends to look at the world differently, and especially more focused.
Venice Beach, I’m quoting Wikipedia again, “is located within the urban region of western Los Angeles County known as the Westside. Venice was founded in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it merged with Los Angeles. Today, Venice is known for its canals, beaches, and the circus-like Ocean Front Walk, a two-and-a-half-mile (4.0 km) pedestrian promenade that features performers, mystics, artists and vendors.” It is the performers, photographer Dotan Saguy has decided to focus on – and the result is often stunning. I’m however not always sure whether it is because of the subject matter or the photographs. I would think it is because of both because of how a subject matter in a photo is perceived depends to a large extent on how it is framed.
For the full review, see here

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