Bryony Shearmur Art

I have been living in Los Angeles for two decades.

Transplanted from London, I have watched my adopted city ebb and flow, and all the while I have discreetly pointed a camera at my surroundings.

This collection was not started with any intention, quite the opposite. It was a way for me to shoot without an agenda. I allowed myself to shoot without rules but within parameters.

My self-imposed parameters were simple. Shoot only with my phone, shoot anything I was moved to shoot, and place no judgment on the result, at all. It was stream-of-consciousness shooting, an antidote to social media and my commercial work.

I have been a documentarian and street photographer for as long as I can remember, but this work existed outside of my usual practice. 

At the beginning of this year when I entered the nft space, I began the process of looking through and editing the multitude of files I had been carefully storing on an ever-growing stack of hard drives. There are thousands of them. They tell the story of a city. They are a portrait of LA.

The idea for diptychs was simple enough, some of the images just cried out for a partner, so I started to let them pair themselves up into short stories.

Over the twenty years that I have been living in LA, I have been witness to a great deal of change, these days the city I live in is not the city I arrived in.

I am one of those outliers who doesnt drive in Los Angeles, I find being on foot gives me a different perspective of the city and its people. Sometimes it is jarring, other times spellbinding, but always it is interesting. 

I see the underbelly, the everyday, the mundane, the dirt, the hopes and dreams both realized and dashed. I catalog everything.

None of the images are meant to shock or shame, they are just what I see.  
It takes courage to live in a city where so many people are brushing up against one another, where the air is filled to capacity with big ideas. I find the people bold and brilliant.

The extremes that I see are about as different as possible, one day I am enjoying the very best the city has to offer, and the next I am on the metro watching a pretty girl doing whippets, riding the line from one end to the other.

I dont know how long I will stay in LA. I miss the English weather and these days my need is for some peace and quiet. But while I am here I will continue to collect images and drink in this place in all its glory.

All images are shot digitally.

HOLLYWOODLAND #28

HOLLYWOODLAND #29

HOLLYWOODLAND #30

A diptych from the "Hollywoodland" Collection 
Created by Bryony Shearmur

On one of those days when LA swoops you up and takes you on an unexpected adventure, I was delivered, grinning and fan-girling to a small house at the intersection of Laurel Canyon and Mullholland Drive. A house where Kim Gordon was living while she was creating a series of paintings. 
Kim Gordon lives in my mind as the ultimate rock heroine, the chicest of them all, the pinnacle of coolness and creativity, and here I am, drinking in her aura, and snooping around her house.  
She was not there, a blessing for slightly-younger-less-able-to-hold-it- together me. But the place was littered with signs of ultimate-rock-chick life. A discarded swimming towel, a bag of laundry (laundry bag liberated from The Chateau Marmont), the remains of a tuna-on-wheat sandwich, and best of all....Kim Gordons tights.

Hollywoodland Special Edition #1 "Kim Gordons Tights"

Volume Two in the series of HOLLYWOODLAND diptychs.  
This is Los Angeles through my eyes.  
A visual diary.  

I have been living in Los Angeles for two decades.

Transplanted from London, I have watched my adopted city ebb and flow, and all the while I have discreetly pointed a camera at my surroundings.

This collection was not started with any intention. It was a way for me to shoot without an agenda  Without rules, but within parameters.

Those parameters were simple. 
Shoot only with my phone. 
Shoot anything I was moved to shoot.  
Place no judgment on the result, at all. 
It was stream-of-consciousness shooting 
My antidote to social media.

I have been a documentarian and street photographer for as long as I can remember, but this work existed outside of my usual practice.

At the beginning of this year when I entered the nft space, I began the process of looking through and editing the multitude of files I had been carefully storing on an ever-growing stack of hard drives. There are thousands of them. 

The idea for diptychs was simple enough, some of the images just cried out for a partner, so I started to let them pair themselves up into short stories.

They tell the story of a city. They are a portrait of LA.

Over the twenty years that I have been living in LA, I have been witness to huge change. These days the city I live in is not the city I arrived in.

I am one of those outliers who doesnt drive in Los Angeles, I find being on foot gives me a different perspective of the city and its people. Sometimes it is jarring, other times spellbinding, but, always, it is interesting.

I see the underbelly, the everyday, the mundane, the dirt, the hopes and dreams both realized and dashed. 
I catalog everything.

None of the images are meant to shock or shame, they are just what I see.  
It takes courage to live in a city where so many people are brushing up against one another, where the air is filled to capacity with big ideas.  
 
I find these people bold and brilliant.

The extremes that I witness are as far apart as possible. 
One day I am enjoying the best life has to offer, and the next I am on the metro watching a pretty girl doing whippets.

I dont know how long I will stay in LA. I miss the English weather. But while I am here I will continue to collect images and drink in this place in all its glory.

All images are shot digitally.