Kaiser & Wexler Steel House Print

Jonathan Ducrest (b. 1976) was born and raised in Switzerland, where his interest in photography was ignited with a point-and-shoot camera he received from his parents. The mountain vistas, atmospheric conditions, and dramatic scenery of the towering Swiss landscape provided him with his earliest subjects. In 1998 he relocated to the United States, where he settled in New York City. There, he expanded his practice into the urban canyons and architectural wonders of the metropolis, which drew parallels with his earlier scenes of nature's awe-inspiring power. In 2013 Ducrest moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of new photographic discoveries. The West Coast's varied topography—deserts, oceanic horizons, and local styles—have provided a fresh set of artistic challenges while also bringing together the diverse strands of his visual palette from twenty-five years of experimentation and creative investigation. Ducrest's compositional skill, discerning eye, and cinematic sensibilities have made him one of the foremost practitioners of landscape, travel, and urban photography working in the Los Angeles area. A self-taught artist, Ducrest also manages all of the technical and editing processes requisite for contemporary digital photography. Ducrest's work has been collected extensively by individuals, and prominent collectors, including Netflix and Swiss. His photographs have been featured in many television productions—Disney-ABC, Warner Media, and Apple. In 2020, he received a citation award for Petrol Station 2018, from the renowned American Institute of Architects, during the AIA/Architectural Photography Awards. In 2021, Saatchi Art named him one of 21 artists to watch in 2021. More recently, you can see his work in the Winter/Spring 2020 edition of YOLO Journal, the October issue of Transhelvetica Magazine, and his book documenting the early days of the lockdown in Los Angeles titled "Lockdown L.A.." In summer 2022, his work "Out of Gas" was selected by the Royal Academy in London for its summer exhibit. It sold out before the show officially opened and the edition sold out with more than a month left. In 2023, his book Lockdown L.A. was part of one of the winning books at the Belfast Photo Festival.