Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Images of the chasm between desire and reality in the picture-imperfect faces and places of Los Angeles 

Singapore-born photographer Nguan has always been interested in cities and the people who inhabit them, which is what drew him to Los Angeles, where dreams, realized and broken, are what the city is based on. 

Smoke break: A man who doesn't bear much resemblance to Spiderman apart from his suit takes five minutes off from being a superhero

When he arrived in Los Angeles, the land of movies, glitz and fame where he himself had once tried to 'make it,' Nguan wanted to capture the city and its people in such as way as to express all the hope, despair, beauty and ugliness of the city. 

The photographer told Slate that he has no interest in the beautiful, the scenic or the iconic - his aim is to 'make the familiar seem exotic'. 

For City of Dreams, Nguan trod the streets of LA from Hollywood Boulevard to Skid Row and Santa Monica Pier in order to create a series that 'explores the lengths to which we’ll go to grasp our Hollywood endings.'

Of his time in Hollywood, he says, 'I felt inhibited by having to tell stories that required contrived beginnings and endings, and instead fell in love with a medium where the befores and afters are left entirely to the viewer’s imagination. Each of my photographs is the middle of a story.'

Flying: A girl sits in a pink and blue fun park ride with one other child among all the empty seats

God's word: A man holding a sign exhorting people to love each other stands at the side of a busy road as traffic passes him by

Marilyn moment: A girl stares at the likeness of Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the biggest Hollywood star - and tragedy - of all time

Past glories: A man sitting in a wheelchair grasps a large trophy with a statuette of a running man attached to the top

The king: An Elvis impersonator in a bedazzled jumpsuit looks incongruous striking a pose on the side of a city street

Dancing on her own: A woman appears to have shed her shoes and clothing beside a large public building as a group of women try to ignore her

Walk of shame: A pair of shoes lies abandoned on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, seemingly shed mid-step by their owner

Desire and reality: Nguan says his work is about the lengths we will go to in order to obtain our own 'Hollywood ending'

Urban excursion: The photographer has no interest in exploring exotic locales in his photography, and prefers to capture moment in everyday life in big cities

Over the rainbow: A colorful arc spreads over a Los Angeles neighborhood street

Candid: Nduang likes the idea that a photograph is without beginning and end: it's right in the middle of the story

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