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One might say that director, author, and photographer Larry Yust has been creating visual encyclopedias for years – that’s how exactly he documents the streets. There might be something to that… Read more
Intro Bio Video
One might say that director, author, and photographer Larry Yust has been creating visual encyclopedias for years – that’s how exactly he documents the streets. There might be something to that theory: His father, Walter Yust, was once an editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica and passed the reference book gene on to his son. Yust’s passion for film also came courtesy of his father, who gave him a Super8 camera when he was a teenager. Larry Yust was born is Philadelphia and grew up in the suburbs of New York and Chicago. He studied Theater Arts at Stanford University and was an officer in the army for two years. He worked in television until he was able to start making his own films. The [Elevations] are essentially free of perspective and cannot be achieved in any other way. They provide a new way of looking at the world.
Larry Yust TECHNIQUE The World in Photographic Elevations Fascinated by New York, Rome, Venice, Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, Larry Yust found a technique for capturing their streets. He calls these pieces Photographic Elevations. At first, they may seem like classic panoramas, but they have much more to offer: complexity, a wealth of details, and emotions. To capture the beauty of the everyday, Yust uses his experience as a director. In film, a long tracking shot could be used to show all the individual images that make his street scenes so lively. A movie camera shoots 24 frames a second, and Yust imitated a tracking shot in still photos. He takes up to 100 overlapping pictures from different camera positions. Then, he puts the pictures together digitally. A simple idea that creates an amazing effect. The pieces have no forced perspectives. They show us a new way of looking at the world and transmit the illusion of finally being able to see the big picture.
ABOUT THE WORK
Father & Son. Behind the Hollywood Sign #1
Director and photographer Larry Yust and his son Alexander collaborated artistically to create a piece that offers a new perspective on a well-known landmark. The Hollywood sign is an internationally renowned symbol, which is most often presented against the backdrop of a blue sky and typical California vegetation. In Alexander and Larry Yust's work, however, the viewer looks in the opposite direction, toward the Hollywood Hills, the Hollywood Reservoir, and the seemingly infinite metropolis of Los Angeles - its skyscrapers rising out of the morning fog.
The father and son duo exhibit a complimentary and balanced dynamic. Together they decided on a panoramic format, stringing together countless individual shots to create a vastness that the human eye cannot grasp with a single glance, but which does impressive justice to the size of Los Angeles.
Moscow Metro
With their magnificent architecture, Moscow’s world-famous metro stations are a dream subject for the master of “photographic elevations”. Larry Yust shows us elaborately decorated platforms as we could never see them with the naked eye – as complete cross-sections. Opened in 1935, the Moscow underground now transports 2.4 billion passengers a year. It is both an historical monument and a pulsing artery of the European continent’s largest metropolis.
USA EAST
Decades ago, the pulsing metropolis New York ignited Larry Yust’s passion for film and for life. There, the artist – who is now over 80 years old – began his career as a film director. Since 2011, he has been revisiting the locations that inspired him back then in order to capture them in an impressive series of photographs.
Yust’s photographic work impressively transmits the urban diversity of New York City’s streets: Pedestrians hurry through the famous shopping district on Fifth Avenue, stroll through Bryant Park, and queue in front of the ticket booths at Grand Central Station. These are fleeting moments, blinks of an eye that never return. The colourful lighted billboards at Times Square and the Manhattan skyline evoke memories of New York, even in those who have never been able to visit it. Yust’s pieces consist of numerous individual photos that are put together with a computer. That way, they hold more detail and complexity than you could make out with the naked eye if you were there in person.
Cuba
Nowhere are grandeur and decline so close to each other as they are in Cuba. American filmmaker and photographer Larry Yust achieves the impossible in his photos of Cuban streets: capturing the glory of the past and the hopeful future at the same time. The previously grandiose houses tell their moving tales.
In Havana’s old town, Yust found these decaying architectural remnants of the independent Spanish colony, the American years, and revolution. The buildings give the city their special charm and ubiquitous patina. At first, it appears as if the shots were composed at whim, but Yust leaves nothing to chance. His complex pieces are the result of meticulous selection, exactly planned camera positions, and precise editing.
USA WEST
You can’t do anything in Los Angeles without a car. But film director Larry Yust’s photographs prove there’s plenty of good reasons to get out and take a closer look. In them, he really highlights the city’s oft-overlooked architectural nuances.
With a filmmaker’s intuition and the precision of a photo artist, Yust brings out the sights that tend to get lost in the traffic and the hustle and bustle along the streets of L.A., San Francisco, and Las Vegas.
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