Venice Beach, California. Photograph by Kwaku Alston.
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A few years ago, Kwaku Alston relocated from New York City to Venice Beach, California, a move that left him feeling surprisingly unsettled—“not only physically and emotionally, but artistically,” he says. He coped by way of his camera, which accompanied him on long, lonely walks through his Abbott-Kinney neighborhood and along Venice’s legendary boardwalk, which is home to a carnival of characters and which overflows with life. He started taking photos, and as he did, he became connected to his new surroundings and reconnected to his art.
Alston is still taking photos in Venice (and posting them here), and creating them has given the longtime celebrity and portrait photographer a chance to work loosely, to accept not being in control of the setting, the lighting, the people. “The images drive me,” he says. “And life races forward, unfiltered.”
Related link: Kodak Closeup interview with Kwaku Alston.
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This past spring, Kwaku compiled a selection of his Venice photos in this book, which he created through Blurb to coincide with an Annenberg Space for Photography exhibition of Los Angeles photographers that included his work.
