New Artist of the Week Series #2, Troy Paiva, King of the Night

Last week I started the first of an ongoing series of posts dedicated to showcasing some of the more interesting artists that I’ve come across online. Each week I will showcase a new artist that I think is doing interesting things in the world of art.

This week I’d like to recommend the photography of Troy Paiva. Troy Paiva is also known as Lost America on Flickr and has been publishing some of the most striking and spectacular light painting for a number of years. Specializing in abandoned and lost places, Troy reinvigorates the forgotten past with color and light in amazing ways. He’s published two books that I own and that I’d highly recommend. 2003’s Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside Westand more recently from earlier this year, Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration.
As much as Troy is an artist with an exceptional eye for color and composition, he’s also very much a documentarian and historian of sort. Troy chronicles the rise and fall of much of America — gas stations, drive in movie theaters, aircraft graveyards, junkyards and of course the deserted highways many abandoned as air travel and freeway’s took over much of what used to define travel for the majority of Americans. You can find Troy’s Lost America website here.

Below are 10 photographs I’ve selected which I think illustrate Troy’s unique style:

Park Lane