Another Side of Los Angeles with George Byrne

Los Angeles is a cultural microcosm—it reinvents itself every day, and the cityscape is a physical manifestation of this phenomenon; it’s a sprawling, massive, disjointed cluster of buildings against a haze-filled sky. Dorothy Parker put it best when she observed that “Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city”, that were all formed by waves of people who more or less shared the same vision; to come to the City of Angels, to cut off any ties to their old lives, and to lose track of time in a place where the seasons never change and everyone is a star.

In that sense, the city is transient to it’s core. For its 12 million or so inhabitants, there is no sense of belonging, because how can you truly belong to a city whose main industry is the perpetual production of culture on a mass scale for the world? Things flare up and fade quickly under the Los Angeles sun. Careers, relationships, businesses, ideas, buildings—nothing goes untouched by the harsh glare of that golden light. The city was made for people who are able to survive and thrive best without being anchored to any place, idea, or sense of self. It’s for those who can bob and weave through the constant pummel of change and find meaning beneath all the simultaneous decay and growth.

George Byrne is a photographer that moved to Los Angeles years ago from Australia and was able to understand the city in a profound way that takes most people a lifetime. His most recent photo exhibition is based around the concrete landscape of Los Angeles, where he captures the banality of the city’s “raw aesthetics [of] …washed out pastel planes, [and] run down 80’s architecture” by using “the light, the air, and the buildings and the fact that there are so few pedestrians that you get to see things really clearly and unimpeded.”

His approach to these photos portray a deep understanding of the city in an almost egalitarian sense; by bringing light and form to these forgotten spaces, he understands that nothing can escape the hand of time or the unapologetic Californian sun. The result is a beautiful, visually soothing play on the true colors of Los Angeles—the parts of it that are often overlooked, which are the most important parts because, despite being forgotten, they survived. Here, we talk to George about his thoughts on the city, his approach to photography, and the different experiences and environments that shaped his worldview.

Could you tell us what it was it like growing up in Australia?

I grew up in an inner-city suburb of Sydney called Balmain. I had a big family (three sisters), lived in a house right near an old shipbuilding dry dock, that later became a park, called Mort Bay. Growing up, we had a lot of freedom. Balmain is a peninsula suburb, so there is no big main road running through it. Everyone knew everyone. It was a bit like a country-town, and there was a pub on almost every corner—a legacy of the suburbs industrial past. My memories of it as a kid are of it being a really fun, hardworking, hard-drinking place… much at odds with what’s going on there now. Outside of the suburb I lived in, my memory of growing up in Australia is just the sheer amount of space we have there. Australia is so huge. Endless coastlines and a vast desert inland that very few city slickers ever go and see. I think in many ways it echoes California, which is probably why I’m so comfortable living here.

Do you believe that growing up where you did had any influence on your work?

Yes, I do, where I lived had a lot of old factories and unused industrial spaces. Some of my earliest memories using a camera were wandering around these spaces and taking pictures of the old machinery and mechanical bits and pieces. I enjoyed the space and the silence and saw beauty in it. I think these instincts are very much alive in the work I do in LA. I also think growing up in Australia I had space to daydream, to look and think about things, Australians are big explorers.

When and how did you decide that you wanted to pursue photography as your artistic medium of choice? Was there a specific moment in time, or a formative experience that lead you to it?

I had a few stops and starts leading to my career in photography. While I knew I loved it at an early age and went on to study fine art and photography at University, I was also someone who gravitated to all sorts of different things and found it extremely hard to buckle down and concentrate on one. I think I ended up choosing to concentrate on photography in part due to its relative newness as a fine art medium. That aspect has always excited me. Also, I got to an age where I realized if I didn’t really laser in on something, I wasn’t going to make anything really good. Photography was always a great constant in my life and came very naturally to me—so I went with it. Moving to LA was also a big part of the process of finding my voice as a photographic artist. I had a visceral reaction to the landscape here, and it very much drove the evolution of my work and my passion for working hard at it.

What is your photo taking process like? Could you walk us through that? What do you usually notice first when you stumble upon a shot? What do you believe is a key element in creating a good composition?

With the urban LA work, what I usually see first is a vignette of color and form, the seed of something interesting. Sometimes I’ll take a look and find there is nothing there worth shooting and other times I’ll take three rolls, it’s a very inexact science. Beyond that I think composition is such a mysterious beautiful thing, there are many theories as to what works and why but I don’t know if I believe any of it.

Who are some of the most important influences in your life, artistic or other?

In no particular order: Picasso, Mondrian, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney, Jeffrey Smart, Brett Whitely, Walker Evans, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, Aretha Franklin, Michelangelo, Donny Hathaway, Pink Floyd and so many more.