Photo: Jonathan Castillo
Traffic jams – you can accept them and make them a part of your daily routine. Or you can move to another city. For photographer Jonathan Castillo this is just what unites all Los Angeles citizens. He believes the only way to get by is to be part of the car culture.
After all, people in Los Angeles must be used to seeing flashlights; it’s the homeland of paparazzi, a place where you stumble upon movie stars and rappers almost every day. Perhaps that’s the reason this photographer thought people wouldn’t mind seeing the bright light as they’d idling in traffic. Jonathan Castillo’s ongoing project is called Car Culture, and it’s meant to capture a drop of the city’s landscape.
Even if drivers are often riding along with a passenger, these portraits clearly show them suspended in thought. With these pictures, he freezes some of people’s intimate and introspective moments.
“I’m really interested in capturing those introspective moments that we all have in our cars,” he told Wired. “Overall though, the project is just as much about Los Angeles and the car culture as it is about the people”.
It may seem like a regular picture, but you should know the process of taking these photographs is quite tricky. Castillo uses two cars. The camera sits on a tripod held down by sandbags in the back of his 2007 Toyota Matrix. The other one holds a 1,500-watt flash behind the passenger seat and pulls up alongside the target.
Both the camera and the flash are controlled by PockeWizar remotes, which the photographer fires from the driver’s seat of his Toyota. The images then transfer to a laptop which an assistant checks for focus and exposure. As you probably guessed by now, the hardest part of each shot is making sure the cars align perfectly to take the best frame at the best moment.
Castillo’s project started back in 2010 and is an ongoing idea that hopefully will culminate with a published book he wants.
Even if drivers are often riding along with a passenger, these portraits clearly show them suspended in thought. With these pictures, he freezes some of people’s intimate and introspective moments.
“I’m really interested in capturing those introspective moments that we all have in our cars,” he told Wired. “Overall though, the project is just as much about Los Angeles and the car culture as it is about the people”.
It may seem like a regular picture, but you should know the process of taking these photographs is quite tricky. Castillo uses two cars. The camera sits on a tripod held down by sandbags in the back of his 2007 Toyota Matrix. The other one holds a 1,500-watt flash behind the passenger seat and pulls up alongside the target.
Both the camera and the flash are controlled by PockeWizar remotes, which the photographer fires from the driver’s seat of his Toyota. The images then transfer to a laptop which an assistant checks for focus and exposure. As you probably guessed by now, the hardest part of each shot is making sure the cars align perfectly to take the best frame at the best moment.
Castillo’s project started back in 2010 and is an ongoing idea that hopefully will culminate with a published book he wants.
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