Paul Jasmin’s photographs are a dreamy tableau that takes the viewer on a journey of seductive beauty and erotic ennui. Lost Angeles highlights the last 50 years Jasmin has spent photographing L.A.’s young dreamers. Jasmin’s images eloquently mirror the mythology of the city in the vulnerability and intangible cool of his subjects. There is life in his portraits of smiling girls and strong and frail men – and the never fading love for the Los Angeles street scenes. There is a nostalgic myth of a splendid and ideal aesthetic, stopped and caught forever.
Paul Jasmin has had a long career as a fashion and art photographer. He was born in Helena, Montana and in 1954 left to begin an incredible journey that would take him to Paris, Morocco, New York, and eventually “the city of dreams”, Los Angeles. Paul had been an illustrator, a painter, and an actor before picking up a camera – at the urging of his friend, Bruce Weber.
