©Daniel Sackheim, A Salaryman’s Night Out, from UNSEEN

This week are featuring work seen at the Los Angeles Center of Photography Exposure Reviews.

Daniel Sackheim is a visual storyteller of the best kind. His photographs bring decades of seeing through his career as a director and producer, working on productions that dig deep into dark psyches. His project, UNSEEN, can only be described in one word: remarkable. His masterful work reveals another side to Los Angeles, a side we knew was there but rarely seen. Los Angeles becomes a character in itself once again, with nod to Noir sensibilities of the 1940s and ’50s, when the city showed its dark side, in spite of all the sunshine and prosperity. As Wallace Neff puts it in Double Indemnity: “Murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle.”

Daniel Sackheim is an Emmy Award-winning, Film & Television director and producer best known for his work on such acclaimed television series as HBO’s True Detective, Game of Thrones, Jack Ryan and The Americans. A partial list of his directorial credits includes M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant, Better Call Saul, Jack Ryan, The Leftovers, Man in the High Castle, The Walking Dead and HBO’s critically acclaimed Lovecraft Country. Sackheim’s feature film credits include the Sony Pictures Thriller The Glass House, which he directed, and stars Diane Lane, Stella Skarsgard and Leelee Sobieski.

In 2020 Dan co-founded Bedrock Entertainment (a label of ITV America) where he serves as Co-CEO and Producer. Bedrock, which is a Los Angeles based Television production company develops and produces prestige content for streamers and premium cable platforms. A partial list of projects in late-stage development include: One, the only scripted television series to filmed in cooperation with F-1©, as well as Last Men Out, which tells the story of famed Brooklyn fire company, Rescue 2, recounting tales of heroism and their many acts of sacrifice on 911, and into the dark days which followed.

Recent awards include: Photo Lucida’s 2023 Critical Mass top 50, and Projection Award, Lens Culture’s 2023, Juror Pick in the series category, Eyeshot Magazine’s 2023 International open call, 2nd place in the series category.

Follow Daniel Sackheim on Instagram: @daniel.sackheim

©Daniel Sackheim, Road Rage, from UNSEEN

UNSEEN

There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

As a child, I suffered a paralyzing fear of the dark. So terrified was I of imagined creatures hiding under the bed, or lurking within the dark recesses of my closet, that I would often drift off to sleep, a flashlight clutched tightly in my grip. The Irony is not lost on me that my current artistic preoccupations take me deep into seedy back alleys and labyrinths of sketchy downtown streets, illuminated by flickering streetlights that barely penetrate the darkness of an often foreboding and claustrophobic urban jungle.

This body of work explores one facet of life in a Metropolis. Despite my unease, my curiosity and inquisitiveness are rooted in a need to discover the secrets that lie hidden deep within even the most forbidding corners of the city. To excavate the past, to stare into the faces of ghosts long forgotten.

Inspired by the visual aesthetic of Film Noir, this work explores isolated fragments of subjects once there but now gone, as a means of shining a light on what is hidden, if only for an instant.

©Daniel Sackheim, Homeward Bound, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, Night Lights, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, Last Light, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, Ghost Town, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, Family Outing, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, A Light from Above, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, All Signs Clear Ahead, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, The Jaws of Light, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, The Elephant in the Room, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, Information, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, End of the Road, from UNSEEN

©Daniel Sackheim, Destination Unknown, from UNSEEN