“Movies are not about places. They’re about stories.” (Los Angeles Plays Itself, 2003)

All shot of 35mm

A week after arriving in Los Angeles, I watched Los Angeles Plays Itself by Thom Andersen at the Egyptian Theatre. I remember thinking the popcorn was the best, and I say that to everyone who asks what’s the best movie theatre in L.A. It’s kind of ridiculous: recommending a theatre in a city I’ve lived in for barely three months makes me feel pretentious. And yet, somehow, I’ve always felt like I “knew” L.A. long before I ever stepped foot here. It’s the City of Angels, Hollywood, the place where dreams come true; at least according to the screens we grew up watching.

But do we really know L.A.?

For most of my life, L.A. existed only in fiction: movies, reality TV, cartoons. I’m sure it was the same for many of you. The irony is that the city was everywhere in the media, yet it was almost never allowed to play itself. It was always pretending to be somewhere else. So when I moved here, I expected to finally meet the L.A. I thought I knew, but the truth is, I’d never actually seen Los Angeles at all.

What I did start to notice were the palm trees.

They’re such simple, obvious objects that they almost feel obnoxious: repetitive, overused, too on-the-nose. But during my time here, they became impossible to ignore. In residential neighborhoods, they stand in perfect formation, tall and proud, guarding the streets. By the beach, they sway with the breeze as if they belong more to the ocean than to the concrete around their trunks. And during overwhelming moments, like when I pictured the years after graduation and felt myself unravel a little, they hovered behind me, steady and observant, witnessing my vulnerability first-hand.

Palm trees are everywhere, in every scenario, for every version of L.A. we pass through. They notice everything, yet we hardly ever notice them.

In the same way, we rarely notice Los Angeles itself. We recognize L.A.: the myth, the brand, but never the city underneath. After watching Los Angeles Plays Itself, I made it my goal to look for Los Angeles in the midst of L.A., to see the place rather than the performance. Photographing palm trees became the way in. They’re the city’s longest-standing extras, but to a newcomer trying to understand the real, physical identity of this place, they became the protagonists. They link neighborhoods that look nothing alike, witness lives that never overlap, and hold decades of stories in their silhouettes.

Through this project, I followed the palm trees to follow Los Angeles itself — the version that exists beyond the screen.