Photo: Ken Hermann
When he was in Los Angeles on assignment, photographer Ken Hermann stayed at a hotel close to Hollywood Boulevard. Walking down the street, he became fascinated by the street artists who dress up as various characters from Hollywood movies - from superheroes to villains to cartoon characters.
Hermann became curious about these impersonators and decided to talk to a few of them to find out what made them do what they do day in, day out. That led to a project called Hollywood Street Characters: The Dead-End of the American Dream, where Hermann took portraits of these impersonators, unmasked to reveal their true faces.
In an interview with The Phoblographer, Hermann explained further:
After talking to several of the impersonators it became clear to me that many of them are, or once were, pursuing the American dream of becoming someone special and famous. I found this struggle and pursuit of the ambition meshed with the innocent fantasy world of dressing up intriguing.
Some of the street characters does a really good job acting as look-alikes and they actually look a lot like some of the big Hollywood stars while others just look like silly grownups in poor and dirty costumes. I was fascinated by this big contrast between the good look-alikes and the poor ones. And I also noticed that the success of the street characters was-n’t about being the most perfect look alike – it also depended upon acting as the most hyped or popular characters or maybe just having a funny or crazy attitude.
View more images over at Hermann's website.
Confessions of a Superhero