Patrick Romero is 36 years old and was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA.

MOSSLESS: For your series Earthquake Weather… Or Stranded in Los Angeles, did you shoot what was around you or did you scout out the situations?
PATRICK ROMERO: A bit of both really. My original plan was to set everything up and maybe accompany it with some kind of text but theresults were looking a bit too conceptual and academic. I wanted something a bit more haphazard and personal. So Idecided to put myself into certain places where i was likely to encounter something or where i could direct certain elementsto build this kind of narrative strategy I wanted to explore. I shouldn’t say “decided”. It just kind of evolved that way since I didn’twant to do a straight documentary style nor did I want to set everything up.

ML: One Day You’ll Walk Right Out Of This Life is a somewhat morose title, which naturally affects the viewer’s understanding of the images. Was this mood your intention?
PR: Not really but I can understand having that interpretation of it. A few years ago my dad was having some health problems and a few people in my extended family died. As will happen, contemplating my parents’ mortality got me on thinking about my own.The title is actually a line from a song by The Jam called “Ghosts”. It just kind of spoke to what I was thinking about atthat time when I was making those pictures. But to me personally that title hints at a kind of liberation. That’smore what I was trying to convey I suppose.

ML: What makes the views in your photographs from your book 28 Famous Views of Los Angeles “famous”? Were they in films?
PR: Maybe some of them were. I don’t know..almost every inch of this city has been filmed at one time or another.  The title is just a cheeky take-off of Hiroshige’s “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo”.  The look and design of the book was conceivedas a homage to Ed Ruscha who with Hockney would probably be considered the quintessential “LA artist”.  I wanted tomake an exotic catalog of a place I personally find to be exotic. My own lo-fi and accessible version of Hiroshige’s Famous Views set in LA. 

ML: Are you working on any new series?
PR: My next project will probably be a dash of self-promotion. I work in the film industry which has been just awful thelast few years. The writer’s strike coupled with the bad economy and productions leaving Los Angeles made workhard to find. So a website and all the pay-to-play contests, portfolio reviews and things that seem to be a requirementof success in the fine art photography world weren’t an option. I was often just trying to survive. But things are picking up so hopefully the website will be up before this summer. Also “Earthquake Weather” is a project in progress that I wantto make a book. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of experimental shooting that probably won’t see the light of day. But it’s all very exciting to me.