Silhouette Photography
| Last Updated: October 9, 2013
In this showcase series we feature the work of Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, a photographer from Los Angeles, USA. Kwasi has recorded a series of images from around the Metro rail network in LA.
Hi Kwasi, thanks for speaking to Photophique, could you tell us about your background?
I grew up in Los Angeles and was heavily involved in the city’s vibrant skateboarding, graffiti and underground hip hop scene in the ’90s. Although I’d always been a creative kid, that time spent wandering the city as a youth planted the seeds for my interest in urban photography.
It was also during that time that my father passed away and left me his old Olympus Pen F half frame camera. Over the next few years I took a couple of classes, read more than a couple photography books, and began photographing Los Angeles almost nonstop. I haven’t stopped shooting since then.
Could you give us some background to this series?
In general my photographs revolve around being a pedestrian in Los Angeles, with an emphasis on the urban landscape of the city’s neighborhoods and the public transit system. I’ve used public transportation to get around the city for years and I’ve been documenting it ever since I started taking pictures. It’s a great place to observe the diversity of a city that’s as geographically segregated as Los Angeles.
The subway is the newest addition to the Los Angeles landscape and a lot of thought has been put into the architecture and design of each station. The idea of a subway in Los Angeles is still pretty alien to a lot of people but as it has expanded and grown in usage, it is slowly becoming part of the fabric of the city.
What is your approach regarding equipment and image processing?
My main camera is my Panasonic GX1
. My lenses are the Sigma 19mm 2.8 and the Panasonic 14mm 2.5. I shoot raw exclusively and process my images in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CS6. I also still shoot a great deal of film with my Contax T2. I’ve always been drawn to small cameras because they draw a lot less attention and are easy to stuff in my backpack.
Many thanks to Kwasi for speaking to Photophique. You can see more of Kwasi’s work at nonstndrd.com or connect with him via Twitter.
Photophique has express permission to publish these images and Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin retains full copyright to all photographs featured in this showcase series.
