P h i l i p   L o r c a   d i C o r c i a 

H o l l y w o o d 

Eddie Anderson, 21 years, Houston, $20, 1990-1992

Brent Booth, 21 years, Des Moines, $30, 1990-1992

Ike Cole, 38 years, Los Angeles, Paid $25, 1990-1992

Mike Miller, 24 years, Allen Town, paid $25, 1990-1992 

Philip Lorca diCorcia made the Hollywood series which can sometimes be known as the Hustlers series in Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, the area is well known for its locals, there are a large amount of people dealing with substance abuse issues, not to mention the male prostitution which takes place in the back alleys.

The photographs mainly consist of documentary and off the wall fantasy pieces. Having found the perfect setting, he would then go in search of a male or female model that fit the genre, and offer them money to pose for him. Underneath the photograph would be a small bar of information containing, the model's name, place of birth and how much they were paid for that particular shot. In diCorcia's main published work this information is always underneath every shot. I have included my found images and their model information above.

"It might be said that twilight is a muddled form of clarity. The warm glow that suffuses the ' golden hour' in Los Angeles acts to filter the grim realities, the outright lies, the self-deceptions, which allow Hollywood, and by extension, America to flourish. 'Twilight' provides the rose-coloured glasses that make it possible to see out but not see in."

Phillip Lorca diCorcia

The care taken into each shot by diCorcia is crucial, he used his camera on a tripod and used artificial and flash lightning to gain the effect he wanted from the LA night skies. This creates a sort 'Twilight' effect that he speaks about in the quote above, this twilight effect gained by clever lighting is how he shows his models for their true self, no glitz or glamour, just pure simple images that show the truth about the people who live in the city of dreams, people that will model for a mear $20-$30.

The idea of diCorcia's work is to show a truth, such as his other exhibitions, the Hollywood series is diCorcia's way of exposing the truth of Hollywood, the idea that the models and subjects in his work are people who have come to Hollywood to win fame, fortune and glamour and it simply doesn't work that way. Instead of the luck some gain from Hollywood they have ended up in a notoriously bad part of town, selling themselves for $20 shots in diCorcia's work. Still though like a lot of diCorcia's work he has managed to take something very simple and make it into his own beautiful work, with the use of his lighting and choice of his models each and every shot is not only interesting to the eye but tantalisingly beautiful.

T h e   P h o t o g r a p h e r s '   G a l l e r y

D e u t s c h e   B ö r s e   P h o t o g r a p h y   P r i z e   2 0 0 9 

On the 06/03/2009 as part of my discourse unit at UEL I visited the Photographers' Gallery in central London, the idea behind the visit was to look at the Photographic work of the four nominees up for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Those Nominee's were;

• Taryn Simon nominated for her work 'An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.
• Tod Papageorge nominated for the exhibition 'Passing Through Eden' - Photographs of Central Park, NY.
• Emily Jacir nominated for her work 'Material for a Film'
• Paul Graham nominated for his work 'A Shimmer of Possibility' 

I generally enjoyed the visit to the Photographers' Gallery, I liked viewing the work by Taryn Simon and Tod Papageorge I felt both their sets of photographs were very striking and generated a lot of emotion within me. 

I loved the simplicity of Papageorge's passing through eden photographs, in particular the photograph I have included above in my blog, it struck me as such a simple yet perfect photograph, everything from the composition of the man to the baby is shot perfectly. 

Another photograph that struck me quite a lot was the photograph of the inbred 'White Tiger', upon seeing the photograph for the first time I thought it may have been digitally manipulated as it didn't look physically possible to have a white tiger look that way, however after reading Simon's information by the side of the photograph I understood that this photograph was in fact real.

I felt really taken aback that this was actually real, I spent a lot of time still in shock that someone could over bread Tigers for the money and end up just creating something that looks Alien and never fitted its intended purpose anyway.However as a photograph I do think its fantastic, its iconic to me because it brought to light an issue I never even knew of. I don't feel in my opinion there is anything technically brilliant about the photograph however just the idea of photographing such a horrific subject makes a brilliant photograph in itself.

In my opinion Tod Papageorge should win the prize, I felt because his work had been produced over a very long period and each and every photograph was as beautiful as the next in such a consistent way. I feel that none of the other photographers exhibitions delivered like Tod Papageorge's did.