Streetwalkers Paperback – February 16, 2016

Amazing book. Brings a new light, an authenticity and a humanisation of the subject. Takes the stereotype and humanises it, sympathises it and offers a unique perspective to a topic that is so shushed by everyone it usually is hard to open up about.

Scot Sothern is a photographer's photographer , a writer's writer and a hound dog's dog all wrapped up in one glorious picture book. I am Sothern devotee having followed his series of Vice submissions and devoured his earlier book, Curb Service. Sothern loves nothing better than to load his camera and flash into his car and go trolling through the wrong streets of LA in the hunt of street walkers hitting their strides anywhere between 1 and 6 am. Not a time of night you or I would necessarily want to be rolling down our car windows to chat with a strung out 'beauty' in stiletto heels and an attitude wavering between enticement and fear. Many of Sothern's short term 'models' are suspicious of his motives as never has any one wanted to simply take their picture. But in his car they climb with a quick buck to earn and Sothern's written words of the catch, and the ensuing photography session, bring the reader into the room, the alley or the underpass while the photos completely capture the moment. Combine all of this together and you will will find yourself laughing at the absurdity of the moment and cringing at the poverty of the underlife yet taking it all in with a desire for it to never end.