Los Angeles has some five thousand active oil wells hidden in the city. Julian Charrière decided to bring them to light and, in so doing, highlight the madness of industrial production through the use of heliography. Employing one of the oldest photographic techniques (while integrating natural California tar), he produced overhead shots exalted by the silver reflections of the steel plates.

The exploitation of hydrocarbon deposits in the American West, and its soils polluted by the heavy metals in oil, were photographed directly above the region’s oilfields: Kern River in the San Joaquin Valley, Placerita and Aliso Canyons in Santa Clarita, Inglewood in the heart of Los Angeles.