Seth Lower’s second photo book, The Sun Shone Glaringly, explores an observation he made upon moving to Los Angeles in 2011: "It isn’t always easy to differentiate between what is spontaneous, or real and what’s mediated. Nothing is ever one or the other." Throughout the book, while repeatedly announcing the thoughts and actions of our generic "hero," Lower combines various elements--photographs of oddly familiar filming locations; portraits of aspiring actors he contacted through Craigslist; dialogue and screenplay notations lifted from Hollywood blockbusters; and his own fabricated narratives--to suggest a story at once sordid and hilarious. Like a neo-noir film script referencing works as diverse as Mulholland Drive and Crocodile Dundee IV, Lower’s book evokes all the tropes of the Los Angeles myth to address an essential question: how do popular representations of Los Angeles affect the everyday experience of the city, and how do people negotiate the slippage between their real lives and their potential selves?
Featured image is reproduced from Seth Lower: The Sun Shone Glaringly.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Conscientious Photography Magazine
Jorg Colberg
The Sun Shone Glaringly takes Hollywood movies as starting points, to create its own story, combining text and photography. Ignoring the text while looking through the book is not going to work. The text is too much of an integral part of the whole experience. It would be like watching a movie with the sound turned off.
The text is a collage of material that’s either taken from movies, it’s anecdotal, or it’s just made up. You’re not being told which one is which, but there is a list of the movies some of the text is based on. Because the text and the photographs essentially are made to operate the same way – both create a sort of mental image in the viewer’s head, The Sun Shone Glaringly is the kind of book you certainly want to look at if you’re interested in how text and photographs can be made to work with each other.
Join us Friday, April 25 at Paris Photo Los Angeles, where we will host book signings with Tom Bianchi, Mike Slack, Tierney Gearon and Seth Lower. Our booth (C6) is located inside the Cafe storefront on the New York City Backlot.
FORMAT: Pbk, 7.5 x 9.5 in. / 80 pgs / 39 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $39.95 GBP £27.00 ISBN: 9780989785907 PUBLISHER: The Ice Plant AVAILABLE: 5/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA UK EUR ASIA AFR ME
Seth Lower’s second photo book, The Sun Shone Glaringly, explores an observation he made upon moving to Los Angeles in 2011: "It isn’t always easy to differentiate between what is spontaneous, or real and what’s mediated. Nothing is ever one or the other." Throughout the book, while repeatedly announcing the thoughts and actions of our generic "hero," Lower combines various elements--photographs of oddly familiar filming locations; portraits of aspiring actors he contacted through Craigslist; dialogue and screenplay notations lifted from Hollywood blockbusters; and his own fabricated narratives--to suggest a story at once sordid and hilarious. Like a neo-noir film script referencing works as diverse as Mulholland Drive and Crocodile Dundee IV, Lower’s book evokes all the tropes of the Los Angeles myth to address an essential question: how do popular representations of Los Angeles affect the everyday experience of the city, and how do people negotiate the slippage between their real lives and their potential selves?
