Truth in the Streets: the Photography of Estevan Oriol

Estevan Oriol happened upon photography at the suggestion of his father, who is also a celebrated photographer known for documenting the streets of Los Angeles in his own unique, raw and poetic manner. Estevan’s own artistic coming-of-age in the same city developed his keen eye which was fueled by his deep-rooted love for The City of Angels. That love emanates from his photographs of street culture during the mid-nineties and beyond. A native of Los Angeles’ Westside, Estevan Oriol worked as a bouncer at several local hip hop clubs in the late 1980s. After befriending rising local music stars Cypress Hill and House of Pain, he began traveling with the bands as tour manager in 1992 and documenting his experience in photographs.

The Evolution from Tour Managing to Photography

Having started his photography career as a side hustle while tour-managing one of hip hop’s biggest selling acts of all time Cyprus Hill, his 'slice-of-life' photography struck a resounding nerve, giving viewers a detailed glimpse into the daily lives of Angelenos that often went overlooked by mainstream media. Back in 1993, Oriol’s father, Eriberto, a photographer himself, gave his son a camera when he set out as tour manager for House of Pain. He began taking photographs of the world he saw, every day. "I first picked it up, probably from what you see now, I’d say in my late 20’s," Oriol recalls. "My dad gave me a camera to shoot with, and then I bought a Polaroid camera, a Polaroid land camera, like the old school fold-out kind."

Oriol soon realized that photography could become his profession. "When I started getting paid for it, which was kind of automatically right when I started, because I kind of got in these situations where people needed photos and I was there." He began hustling work on the music magazines because he was the tour manager of Cypress Hill and House of Pain. "I would see that [the press] wouldn’t get as many photos because they didn’t have the time," he explains. When it came time to doing bigger jobs, he decided: "Man, I don’t need to tour manage no more! Because I’m making good money and those guys are touring anyway, so it’s kind of like I got pushed into quitting the tour managing thing and becoming a photographer."

Artistic Style and Subject Matter

As a photographer, Oriol largely works with film and classic cameras, such as the Pentax 67, to create high-contrast, black-and-white and color-saturated images. Oriol’s camera and the photos he produced became an ancillary voice for what was happening to the marginalized people in the streets of Los Angeles. Although Oriol has photographed many international subjects, such as Tokyo Bosozoku motorcycle gangs and favela life in Brazil, he and his work are decidedly Angeleno. His portraits of Los Angeles’ women, musicians, lowrider cars, Cholos, gang members, graffiti writers and other characters provide a unique record of the city’s street culture over the past 30 years.

His monographs showcase the breadth of his work:

• LA Woman: A 2009 release featuring Oriol’s unforgettable pin-ups that put the edge in sex.
• LA Portraits: This companion volume is all things masculine, featuring raw, rugged, and ready for war images of the men of Los Angeles.

Professional Milestones and Collaborations

By 1995, Oriol and Mister Cartoon were business partners in the apparel line Joker Brand Clothing. As the line grew more successful and Oriol began to direct videos for musicians such as Cypress Hill, Xzibit, Eminem and Blink-182, he and Mister Cartoon expanded their partnership as part of SA (Soul Assassins) Studios. In 2020, he directed LA Originals, a film that documents his long friendship and collaboration with Mister Cartoon.

Oriol also recently curated the first installment of the adidas Originals ‘NMD’ Immersive Photo Gallery Experience. "Basically, adidas reached out to me. I’ve done a few projects with them," he says regarding the collaboration. "They hit me up to do this project where I walked around with 16 or 17 street photographers that they handpicked to go to different locations of my choosing."

Key Career Highlights

Year	Event / Project
1992	Began documenting experiences as tour manager for Cypress Hill and House of Pain.
1995	Became business partners with Mister Cartoon in Joker Brand Clothing.
2009	Released first monograph, LA Woman.
2020	Directed the documentary film LA Originals.

The Ethics of the Street

From his first jobs in construction and security, Oriol learned skills that were later valuable as a photographer: to work hard, and be respectful to people. "If I’m working the door at the club, I had to be respectful to people... but also firm with them," he notes. "My construction jobs taught me how to work hard, pretty much taught me my work ethic." Every bit of everything he learned with Cypress Hill was applied to his photography career. There is no knowing anything other than what is seen, only the image that speaks in every language at the same time without ever saying a word.