A brand new picture e-book celebrates the colourful lowrider tradition in LA
Since its inception in the 1940s, the lowrider tradition has provided a platform for Mexicans to express themselves. With their elongated bodies and low curl, automobiles have become the vehicle of choice for cruising, a popular pastime in many American communities.
Today there are tens of thousands of lowriders in Los Angeles alone, but the movement is still misunderstood by society and portrayed by the media as crude and dangerous.
Kristin Bedford's eye-catching new photo book Cruise Night is known for her calm portraits of American cultural movements and marginalized communities.
"My journey to lowriding came from an interest in how customizing a car is about having a voice – politically, culturally, and creatively," says Bedford.
“While lowriding is a worldwide phenomenon, it has a unique meaning for Mexicans in Los Angeles. For over 70 years, this community has expressed its identity through this distinctive car culture. I wanted to take photos and understand the importance of transforming a car to be seen and heard. "
Bedford is far from being a drive-by photographer who visits a community for a few days and then returns home. Her process involves embedding herself in a community over a longer period of time to build relationships with the people in it and ultimately capture more honest moments in front of the camera.
During the Cruise Night series between 2014 and 2019, Bedford also realized that she was the first woman to photograph the lowrider community. “When I saw the awesome, calm, and natural photos of female lowriders I took, I found that it was a woman who bonded with other women who took them,” she says.
“I also wondered why I had never seen images like this before, and I realized that the visual narrative of lowriding and automotive cultures of all kinds was entirely male-dominated. The male-dominated images usually show women as sexual accessories, posing next to a car in bathing suits or lingerie. I think it took a photographer to break this mold and offer a new story. "
The end result is an intimate, and unstaged, exploration of LA Mexican-American lowrider car culture that offers a new perspective on an often overlooked American art form.
Cruise Night is published by Damiani; damianieditore.com