Bruce Davidson has recently finished two new books dedicated to the City of Angels: <a href='http://www.magnumphotos.com/Package/2K1HRG6YCAFJ' target='_blank'>Los Angeles 1964</a> and <a href='http://www.magnumphotos.com/Package/2K1HRG6YCXWT' target='_blank'>Nature of Los Angeles 2008-2013</a>.

Bruce remembers the circumstances of the 1964 trip:
"Esquire’s editors sent me to Los Angeles, and when I landed at L.A. International Airport I noticed giant palm trees growing in the parking lot. I ordered a hamburger through a microphone speaker in a drive-in called Tiny Naylor’s. The freeways were blank and brilliant, chromium-plated bumpers reflected the Pacific Ocean, but the air quality was said to be bad. People looking like mannequins seemed at peace on the Sunset Strip while others were euphoric as they watered the desert. I stood there ready with my Leica, aware of my shadow on the pavement. I walked up to strangers, framed, focused, and in a split second of alienations and cynicism, pressed the shutter button. Suddenly I had an awakening that led me to another level of visual understanding. But in the end, for some unknown reasons, the editors rejected the pictures, and I had to return home with a big box of prints, put them in a drawer, and forgot all about the trip."

In 2008 Bruce Davidson began exploring Los Angeles from the point of view of its exotic plant life. The arid climate, normally hostile to life, allows for an exceptional botanical diversity in L.A. County that reaches from the surrounding foothills and mountain wilderness to the Pacific Ocean. Davidson’s images reveal both the beauty and banality of urban existence in L.A., and the unexpected interactions between the natural and man-made environments.

Signed copies of both books are available through the <a href='http://store.magnumphotos.com/collections/books/bruce-davidson' target='_blank'>Magnum Store</a>.