Naked Los Angeles

By Greg Friedler

The people of Los Angeles are men and women of all shapes, ages, colors, and professions living in a city famed for its Hollywood glamour and perpetual summer. Photographed outdoors we see a magician, screenwriter, trapeze artist, unemployed surfer, filmmaker, casting director, aerospace engineer, and many more. This serious and, at the same time, amusing group of portraits shows the surprising differences and not so surprising similarities we have to one another clothed and unclothed. Unlike traditional nude photography, these portraits don't have erotic or sexual overtones; they are simply real people who reveal both their clothed public selves and their naked private selves. Greg Friedler's work as a documentary photographer is a kind of anthropological survey of people. If clothing is a voluntary choice, unclothed we see people in an involuntary state--we see their bodies as we see their faces, unmasked. These images are at once deeply intimate and refreshingly matter of fact.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393318745
• ISBN13: 9780393318746
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 9.5" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

NAKED IS NATURAL

Besides what may be its voyeur value for some, "NAKED LOS ANGELES" also shows what it is to be real and unvarnished. The naked self that many of us see in the morning before we dress for the day, though many of us are at times loathe to embrace and accept it. Friedler, through this book, shows us people who are brave and honest enough to throw off pretense and bare themselves unabashedly. Well done! Take heart when reading this book and be proud of your naked self, too.

Very interesting

A lot of people would think this is quite a boring book, but I found it fascinating to see how much clothing changes someone's appearance. It just reinforces the idea that we're all naked under our clothes.

Novel Idea

Grab this book while you can. The NAKED LONDON book is out of print already.

Great look into human beings

Both Naked NY and Naked LA are wonderful human studies and are highly recommended. The contrast between the New Yorkers and Anglinos is facinating.

What does the girl next door look like with her clothes off?

This book taps into the deepest part of human curiosity, namely what does everybody around you look like with their clothes off. It's like ordering the x-ray glasses from the back of the comic book and having them really work! When I got this book I sat for hours with a couple of friends fighting over which page to look at, making comments on this photo or that one, engaged in discussions of whether tattooed people where more likely to want to take their clothes off, etc. It is a very honest and straightforward look at people's most intimate side and very well shot. Definitely worth buying.