{"id":456179,"date":"2026-09-07T11:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/456179\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T11:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:50:08","slug":"an-intimate-portrait-of-east-la-the-eastside-of-all-eastsides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/456179\/","title":{"rendered":"An intimate portrait of East LA, the \u2018Eastside of all Eastsides\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past eight years, Belgian photographer Stig De Block<\/a> has been documenting Los Angeles, drawn to the city\u2019s ever-evolving subcultures and close-knit communities. His first book, Back to Back, brought together four years of intimate portraits from LA\u2019s lowrider scene. Now he returns with his second monograph, East Los, which focuses on the friendships, rituals and everyday lives of young people in East LA.<\/p>\n

Here lies the LA River, the physical and cultural line separating Downtown Los Angeles from Boyle Heights \u2013 a neighbourhood that has often been reduced to stereotypes of crime and deprivation. \u201cEast LA has often been photographed sensationally, and I wasn\u2019t interested in confirming those expectations,\u201d the photographer tells Dazed.<\/p>\n

When he started the project four years ago, De Block admits he was initially drawn to some of East LA\u2019s more familiar visual tropes: cityscapes against dramatic sunsets; roosters running through the streets; utility poles plastered with printed announcements. But halfway through the project, his approach shifted after he encountered the work of former Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. \u201cI was captivated by his presence, his aura,\u201d he says. \u201cHe describes the LA reality in a cinematic way, with vivid descriptions of gestures, locations, atmosphere. From then on, I learned to look for the quiet details in the lives of the communities there.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Block was especially drawn to Rodriguez\u2019s writing about Los Angeles, including the poem The Eastside of All Eastsides, which evokes the history and texture of East LA, the endurance of Mexican-American culture and the layers of posters and paint that accumulate across the neighbourhood like a \u201creal-life collage\u201d. Near its conclusion, Rodriguez acknowledges the area\u2019s hardships while insisting on the vitality that persists within it: \u201clife that sings us all to power\u201d.<\/p>\n

Inspired by Rodriguez\u2019s more nuanced and compassionate vision, De Block\u2019s subsequent photography came to reflect his own interpretation of the poet\u2019s work as he photographed across Montebello, Happy Valley, Boyle Heights, Maravilla, Belvedere Gardens and Ramona Gardens. Even when hardship enters the frame, he focuses on quieter, more tender details \u2013 like a young man commemorating his deceased brother by wearing a shirt bearing his portrait and the words \u201cIn Loving Memory\u201d.<\/p>\n

In one photo, the photographer interprets Rodriguez\u2019s idea of \u201crooted cultures\u201d quite literally, capturing a tree with overlapping trunks next to an image of three women\u2019s arms and hands intertwined. \u201cIt\u2019s a juxtaposition, a reference to family trees and deeply rooted heritage in the community. The position of these three friends gestures in the same direction as the tree trunks,\u201d says De Block.<\/p>\n

He also photographed a young woman leaning on her front porch in a blue Dodgers shirt, framed against a wall where an ageing Dodgers logo peels from the plaster, while an elderly man peers out from the shadows. For De Block, the image speaks to the generations who have shaped Eastside LA and continue to live there. \u201cWith East Los, I wasn\u2019t looking for extraordinary moments, but for stories that quietly showed the overshadowed details we miss in everyday Eastside LA,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stig De Block\u2019s East Los<\/a> launches on November 12th, 2026, followed by a solo exhibition at Gallery FIFTY ONE<\/a><\/p>\n