In the late 1970s, Matt Sweeney dropped out of high school with dreams of becoming a movie maker. While working in gas stations and restaurants in San Jose, California, he found out about Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope education/training/intern program, and moved to Hollywood to pursue that. Matt wanted to work behind the camera, so he started practicing with a Nikon F2 camera, shooting Kodachrome slides. Inspired by photographers like Garry Winogrand, Minor White, and Elliott Erwitt, he set out to document the world around him on the streets of Hollywood, photographing scenes from 1979 through 1983, while hoping somehow to hit the big time. The internship never happened, and unfortunately, no production jobs materialized. At 21, Matt moved on, selling his equipment and working through college to do lab work. "I went to Hollywood to 'make it', but didn't, and ended up taking pictures of Hollywood, capturing scenes of others 'not making it' as well. It didn't escape me then and it doesn't now." Matt held onto the slides, now more than 30 years old, and has recently begun scanning and posting them on Tumblr. "The web makes it possible to leave some kind of record of my time and share it with people". Many thanks to Matt for sharing these images below, captions by the photographer.
Hollywood Streets, 1979-1983
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Inside the bus turning onto Hollywood Boulevard. The 217 or 89 (not sure) coming down from Hollywoodland/Gower and turning onto Hollywood Blvd in 1980 or so on its way to Melrose/Santa Monica area. I rode that RTD bus for years. averaged about 3+ hours per day on it. I'd stay on until I felt like getting off and shooting and before it got much past Graumann's Theater. #
© Matt Sweeney -
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