Anthony Hernandez (photographer)

"[7] La Biennale di Venezia said of Hernandez, "For the past three decades a prevalent question has troubled the photographer: how to picture the contemporary ruins of the city and the harsh impact of urban life on its less advantaged citizens?

[7] His earliest images are of parts and machinery left in an empty lot near an automobile repair shop close to his home, foreshadowing the development of common subjects of his work: urban decay and abandoned detritus.

[7][12] Starting in 1969, his work is defined by 35 mm black-and-white street photography (mainly portraiture) in Los Angeles and Hollywood that established a distinctive style characterized by subjects who appear alienated and "overwhelmed by unseen forces.

[20][23] Between 1978 and 1983 he continued to make images of prosaic elements of Los Angeles street life and public spaces, but the wider orientation of the view camera resulted in people taking a less prominent place in his pictures while augmenting the presence of the built environment.

[7][22] These pictures represent a fusion of street and landscape photographic traditions and offer energized and animated compositions unusual for view camera work.

[23] Collectively these series offer rare examples in any art form that depict the day-to-day lives of the poor and working class of Los Angeles.

[7] In 1984–1985, responding to a suggestion from an art director at Los Angeles magazine, he shifted to color work with a series of 35 mm close-up street portraits of shoppers taken on Rodeo Drive.

[3][7][24] He used the same zone focus technique he had used in his earliest street work whereby the camera is pre-focused for a set distance, allowing for quick capture.

[4][7][12] In 1986, as artist-in-residence at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Hernandez photographed an array of spent shells and exploded debris left over at a target range—absent of the shooters.

[4] This series, "Shooting Sites," signaled a shift in his artistic vision toward capturing scenes suggesting abandonment and desolation absent of human players yet charged with intrigue about their involvement.

[7][27] The pictures also reveal another signature tactic of his compositions, which is to offer visual allure that draws a viewer into troubling subject matter.

[7] In "Discarded," 2012–2015, Hernandez comments on the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis in his austere color photographs of abandoned houses and other remains located in residential subdivisions in the desert east of Los Angeles.

Only when you look closely, you see what the pictures actually depict: a tent on the edge of a lawn, a lonely figure walking past a gas station, and various architectural details throughout the city.