PHOTOGRAPHY: Angeleno * Portraits by Paul Zollo

Lucy

angeleno

All Photos by PAUL ZOLLO

What follows are a chosen many of my favorite portraits from my ongoing project, “Angeleno,” a collection of  portraits of Angelenos – the angels of the angel city – taken in Los Angeles from downtown to Hollywood to the sea and beyond.

[All photos © Paul Zollo, 2014. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Angeleno

Amy. She was in the midst of a photo shoot on the Santa Monica pier when I stole this moment.

John, homeless in Hollywood, on the bus bench out in front of the old Roosevelt Hotel, first home of the Oscars.

Debbie, a stripper by night, on Coldwater in North Hollywood.

She was in the middle of shooting a commercial for John John Jeans when I stole this moment, shooting through the crew.

The father of the photographer, Burt Zollo. In Illinois.

For the past several years, I have been taking photos in and around greater and lesser Los Angeles, always with the aim of publishing a large collection of them to be called ANGELENO. Because as a photographer I have found few things on this planet as visually compelling as a human being in the process of being human, and I’ve also discovered that every kind of person in the universe of man seems to live in Los Angeles. Of course, if there is a whole other kind of person I’ve never seen, I wouldn’t know to miss it – but I have been forever exalted by the presence of such an immense array of humanity.

David Lynch, photographed at Soho House, West Hollywood, September 13, 2011.

At first the book was going to be called Caras de Los Angeles; Faces of the Angels, as these are photographs of the resident angels of the Angel City. But Angeleno sums up what the book is about because it is so specific and yet so general at once, much like Los Angeles, this city of contradictions, containing, as Ftzgerald said about Hollywood, equations too complex for the normal man to hold in his head at once.  An Angeleno, in my definition, is any person who lives here now – no Angeleno has to be native to be an Angeleno, which is part of the beauty of the thing. This is a place of inclusion, despite infamous exceptions. This is a place where the black sheep of every family can come to be accepted. And all the white sheep, too, of course. All sheep are drawn to our famous city, as are all shepherds. As Dylan wrote, “The mountains are filled with lost sheep.”  Here’s where we come to be found.

And so with gratitude forever to readers of Bluerailroad who have supported us since the start, and to those who come to enjoy these photographs, I wish you all a productive and inspirational 2014, not the ending, as so many might suggest, but the start of something big.

My beamish boy, Joshua Zollo, in  Halloween attire , as Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange.

                       Day of the Dead; Dia de los Muertos, October 2011 Hollywood Forever cemetery,

Orianthi on Vine. After shooting Dave Stewart’s “The Ringmaster.”

Raymond on Rossmore. Homeless in Hollywood.

Hollywood.

Hugh Hefner at 86, taken at the 2011 Thalians Charity event at the Playboy Mansion.

Girl with a Tattoo on the Roof

A holy man in Hollywood. Sikh at Hollywood & Vine.

The actor Bob Odenkirk after filming a video with The Black Keys at a used car store on Hatteras & Lankershim in North Hollywood, California.

At Philippe’s in downtown Los Angeles.

The Altar of the old Church of Los Angeles at Olvera Street down in downtown town.

Morris Brickman, on a sunny morning in Hollywood. Politics were on everyone’s minds, so I asked him if he liked Newt Gingrich, and he laughed as I took this.

This is Golondrina, a wonderful singer i heard on Olvera Street and photographed. When I sent her this picture, she sent me an email of poetry: “Thank you very much for photography if you received it with all my heart agradesco Happy New Year I wish your friend the swallow lomejor Oaxacan kisses.”

My beamish lad Joshua Zollo posing with the surprising and beautiful religious iconography painted on the wall of Tacos el Toro quite near our Noho home.

Lucy Casado of Lucy’s El Adobe in Hollywood, long one of my and millions of other Angeleno’s favorite restaurant in town.

John the Baptist, homeless in Hollywood.

Mariya, from the Ukraine, on Cahuenga in Hollywood.

Patrick Carney of the Black Keys, right after shooting a music video at a used car lot at Hatteras & Lankershim in Noho, California, USA.

Lost In Venice. When I asked him his name, he said, “Lost.”

David Spade in the parking garage of Soho on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, where he kindly let me take this.

My friend the formerly homeless Kent Willard at the LA Family Housing Shelter in North Hollywood

Kenneth Anger, legendary director and author of “Hollywood Babylon.”

The Lynch Girls. These 2 introduced every track of David Lynch’s new album as we, the music press, assembled to listen. And to watch these two.

Jacob, homeless in a Hollywood summer afternoon.

My friend the brilliant Jennifer Jonassen

Rock Wife Josie Stevens with Iraq War soldier just home from the war to the Playboy Mansion.

Larry Gomez, aka Wolf Boy, at the Venice Beach Freak Show under the tutelage of the great Todd Ray.

The Timelessly Charming Penny Folger

Nick Ashford, who sadly died this year, taken at the Grammy Museum in downtown L.A.

Carole Channing in Hollywood, January 13, 2012

Glen Campbell on his farewell tour at Club Nokia in downtown town, Los Angeles.

Stripes Walking

Angeleno

The Best of 2011

Photographs & Introduction by PAUL ZOLLO

Stephen, taken on Hollywood Boulevard.

For the past several years, I have been taking photos in and around greater and lesser Los Angeles, always with the aim of publishing a large collection of them to be called ANGELENO. Because as a photographer I have found few things on this planet as visually compelling as a human being in the process of being human, and I’ve also discovered that every kind of person in the universe of man seems to live in Los Angeles. Of course, if there is a whole other kind of person I’ve never seen, I wouldn’t know to miss it – but I have been forever exalted by the presence of such an immense array of humanity.

David Lynch, photographed at Soho House, West Hollywood, September 13, 2011.

At first the book was going to be called Caras de Los Angeles; Faces of the Angels, as these are photographs of the resident angels of the Angel City. But Angeleno sums up what the book is about because it is so specific and yet so general at once, much like Los Angeles, this city of contradictions, containing, as Ftzgerald said about Hollywood, equations too complex for the normal man to hold in his head at once.  An Angeleno, in my definition, is any person who lives here now – no Angeleno has to be native to be an Angeleno, which is part of the beauty of the thing. This is a place of inclusion, despite infamous exceptions. This is a place where the black sheep of every family can come to be accepted. And all the white sheep, too, of course. All sheep are drawn to our famous city, as are all shepherds. As Dylan wrote, “The mountains are filled with lost sheep.”  Here’s where we come to be found. And so with gratitude forever to readers of Bluerailroad who have supported us since the start, and to those who come to enjoy these photographs, I wish you all a productive and inspirational 2012, not the ending, as so many might suggest, but the start of something big. I received an email from Yoko Ono today, and I mention it not just out of pure pride that I get emails from Yoko Ono, who I adore, but to share her message, which, like so many of the messages she’s delivered through these decades, is an affirmative one: “2012 is the beginning of the next millenium of our golden age.” What follows are all photos I took in 2011.

My beamish boy, Joshua Zollo, in his Halloween attire for 2011, as Alex DeLarge from “A Clockwork Orange.”

                       Day of the Dead; Dia de los Muertos, October 2011 Hollywood Forever cemetery, Hollywood.

Hugh Hefner at 86, taken at the 2011 Thalians Charity event at the Playboy Mansion.

Girl with a Tattoo on the Roof

The actor Bob Odenkirk after filming a video with The Black Keys at a used car store on Hatteras & Lankershim in North Hollywood, California.

At Philippe’s in downtown Los Angeles.

The Altar of the old Church of Los Angeles at Olvera Street down in downtown town.

Morris Brickman, on a sunny morning in Hollywood. Politics were on everyone’s minds, so I asked him if he liked Newt Gingrich, and he laughed as I took this.

This is Golondrina, a wonderful singer i heard on Olvera Street and photographed. When I sent her this picture, she sent me an email of poetry: “Thank you very much for photography if you received it with all my heart agradesco Happy New Year I wish your friend the swallow lomejor Oaxacan kisses.”

My beamish lad Joshua Zollo posing with the surprising and beautiful religious iconography painted on the wall of Tacos el Toro quite near our Noho home.

Lucy Casado of Lucy’s El Adobe in Hollywood, long one of my and millions of other Angeleno’s favorite restaurant in town.

John the Baptist, homeless in Hollywood.

Mariya, from the Ukraine, on Cahuenga in Hollywood.

Patrick Carney of the Black Keys, right after shooting a music video at a used car lot at Hatteras & Lankershim in Noho, California, USA.

Lost In Venice. When I asked him his name, he said, “Lost.”

David Spade in the parking garage of Soho on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, where he kindly let me take this.

My friend the formerly homeless Kent Willard at the LA Family Housing Shelter in North Hollywood

Kenneth Anger, legendary director and author of “Hollywood Babylon.”

The Lynch Girls. These 2 introduced every track of David Lynch’s new album as we, the music press, assembled to listen. And to watch these two.

Jacob, homeless in a Hollywood summer afternoon.

My friend the brilliant Jennifer Jonassen

Rock Wife Josie Stevens with Iraq War soldier just home from the war to the Playboy Mansion.

Larry Gomez, aka Wolf Boy, at the Venice Beach Freak Show under the tutelage of the great Todd Ray.

The Timelessly Charming Penny Folger

Nick Ashford, who sadly died this year, taken at the Grammy Museum in downtown L.A.

Carole Channing in Hollywood, January 13, 2012

Glen Campbell on his farewell tour at Club Nokia in downtown town, Los Angeles.

Stripes Walking

 

Naomi.

Superman & Jesus on Hollywood Boulevard

Billy Beck In Silverlake

Anthony in Venice

claudia in a pasadena window

Captain Lou

Jonah Sparks & Supergirl at the Chinese Theater

Slash.

Henry Diltz Looking at Photos in his Camera

The Bar Mitzvah of Adam Shenkman

Dave Grohl

Jerry Maren, Lollipop Munchkin, At Home in Hollywood

Carlos & Paulie in Venice

Amy in the Bastille Day Sky

Leon Hendrix, March, 2009

Shadow

Veronica at the Aroma Cafe

Alice Cooper in Los Angeles, October, 2009.

Christopher Dennis at Home in Hollywood

  My friend, the late Mauricio Saravia, artist, poet, visionary. www.mauriciosaravia.com; artistinterviews.com. 

Debbie on Coldwater

Angel on 6th & Julian

Doc Showing Me His Heart

Amy O’Neill in Silverlake

Marlene Morrow on Yucca

Kevin.

 Riding my bicycle along Hollywood Boulevard I saw him in the crowd – noticed him instantly.

When we reached each other, I said hi and asked if he would mind if I took his photo. “You want my photo?” Yeah, I said. There’s nobody like you. “I know.” And he smiled for me -although his face was evidently destroyed by something- and his mouth reconstructed.

I asked him what happened. “Shot,” he said. “Shot in the face.” 

He motioned a gun at close range being shot directly into his face.

Andyou survived that? I asked. “No,” he said with a smile. “I’m dead.”

I apologized for what was a stupid question, but it was hard to fathom – gun shot- close range – into his face.  And he lived.

So what happened? I asked. Was it an accident, or did someone mean to shoot you?

“I did it myself. Tried to kill myself.”

You did? “Yeah.”

Where? “Arizona.”

Phoenix? “Tucson.”

So tell me, how did it feel, after you shot yourself in the face – and you came to – and realized you were not dead?

“Agony. The worst agony ever.”

Man. “Yeah.”

What kind of gun? “30-aught-six.” 

 I told him what I thought:

God gives everyone a different life – and some people get really really hard lives.

“That’s me. Doesn’t get much worse.”

Told me he’s on the street. Homeless.

I asked him how bad it was that he wanted to die. “Bad. Really bad. The worse kind.”

Are you gonna try again? “No. I tried once. That’s enough.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos © Paul Zollo, 2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

For more info, contact Henrycrinkle@bluerailroad.com