Lost Angeles [Hardcover]

Sofia Coppola (Author), Bruce Weber (Author), Paul Jasmin (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2008

In Paul Jasmin's hauntingly beautiful new book, Lost Angeles, the city takes on a quality of light and personality known only to someone who has experienced it first hand. Here are the "tarnished angels" that hang out on Hollywood Boulevard or in local motel rooms, that have come to L.A. looking for the American dream, Hollywood style, and have quickly discovered it takes more than just desire to succeed. Jasmin combines formally fluid pictures of these youths languishing in dreamlike settings or in erotically charged compositions--clothed and unclothed. His images present the viewer with a personal survey of Los Angeles, of the place and the people who live there, some of whom have realized their dreams, some of whom are still searching. A major figure in the world of photography and an influence on many of today's young artists, Jasmin has included among his subjects his friends, including Sofia Coppola, who along with long-time friend and admirer Bruce Weber, have contributed essays that explore the depths of this truly rarefied vision. They add yet another dimension to his portrait of a town they all love.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Steidl; First Edition edition (November 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3865210260
• ISBN-13: 978-3865210265
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #808,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mesmerizing Look at Los Angeles, January 4, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Angeles (Hardcover)

At last someone has created a photographic portfolio that examines and celebrates the City of the Angels with all the fulfilled and aborted dreams of life in the golden spotlight that this city represents. Paul Jasmin is a sensitive photographer and in these plentiful works in both luxurious color and soft duotones he has sought and found youths in search of the rainbow, capturing them in pensive hopeful moments and private sad stances as the pot of gold either absorbs or eludes them.

Jasmin's settings are imaginative yet never contrived and the people he photographs are at once beautiful and intransigent. Some are in Hollywoodesque costume while others are nude. No matter the pose, Jasmin retains a respect for the model and for the models' intact or bruised dreams.

Opening the book are comments by Bruce Weber, one of the finest photographers of the male nude, and by Sofia Coppola, a sensitive director and `friend' to the hopeful vagrants and to Los Angeles as a city of dreams. Together with Jasmin's photographs they have created a book that is a beautiful art piece as well as a gentle psychological reverie about Los Angeles. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is my city., September 6, 2005

By 

Holly "junkstory" (Los Angeles, CA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Angeles (Hardcover)

This is my Los Angeles. The one I see when I walk around on streets, staring at things. The one I try to capture with every piece of fiction I write. This is it.

So many portrayals of Los Angeles, whether fictional, nonfictional, or photographical, take all the wrong parts of California cliche and try to call it LA. Look, here are some movie stars. Look, here are some bored rich kids. Look, here's the 'underbelly of Hollywood', whatever that means.

Paul Jasmin gets it right. The dirty pretty people wearing leather. The graffiti, the cigarettes, the lounging around, the leopard print. One of my favourite images features a scruffy, aging writer at his laptop, surrounded by books and wearing a shirt that says 'When we were punk'. It's so far from any travel guide with the Hollywood sign on the front. I just want to cheer, //Here it is. This is it. This is my Los Angeles.//

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lush and sensual, full of light, hope and promise., December 12, 2006

By 

Andrew B. Hurvitz (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Angeles (Hardcover)

Paul Jasmin lives and works in Hollywood and his photographs are infused with both the light and the grit of this section of Los Angeles. In an age of digital manipulation, Jasmin's work has the depth and richness of film and the practiced eye of an artist who knows of composition, texture, and above all feeling.

True that many of his subjects are young and beautiful. But nothing about them seems forced. They are relaxing in the afternoon light, on a bed near a window, or reading at a long dining table in an old room with faded wallpaper. Some are nude, some are not, but in most of the images one senses an empathy in Mr. Jasmin that cannot be faked.

You can walk in the same steps as Mr. Jasmin if your visit Whitley Heights. The old 1920's buildings are here, the ones with the crooked wooden floorboards and the casement windows. You may also see young hopefuls rushing up the hill, carrying their backpacks, on their way home from an audition, under the palms.