Los Angeles Palm Trees
‘Los Angeles Palm Trees’ is a series of shadows cast by L.A. palm trees on walls, facades or the ground throughout the city, specifically in Santa Monica and Venice, both during the day and at night.
Palm trees are a symbol and an icon of Los Angeles. One can see them from nearly every place, every street, and every hill. They evoke a sense of paradise and vacation time, making everyone feel good.
They became kind of an obsession for me when I first arrived in L.A. in 2018. I used to photograph them constantly, from every angle and in all kinds of lighting situations. When I moved back in 2021, I began working on this series while taking photography classes.
L.A.’s bright daylight and the streetlights at night create palm trees shadows that are like the city’s footprints, like fossils petrified on walls, that remind us of where we are, at any time of the day. They are a constant reminder of what the city is made of, something that, one could say, can never be erased.
In 1990, a city toll counted 75,000 palm trees in Los Angeles, although the current number is unknown. The recent fires have sadly likely destroyed an incalculable number of them. But the city and its people continue to rebuild, to recover what they have lost and preserve these shadows, these fossils, which form part of their identity.
This work explores memory, the passage of time, and identity. Shadows are temporary, they come and go as time passes, reminding us of both the ephemeral and permanent nature of life. Making this series I have wondered if what we leave behind as time goes by is like an ephemeral shadow. Are the shadows of a city our own identity? Are they the appearance of something missing, something absent? What defines our memory of a place? What keeps its memory alive?
