Los Angeles is a web of asphalt where daily life is measured in miles and traffic lights. It’s here that photographer Adali Schell learned to look at the world through a car window, turning that habit into Car Pictures, an ever‑evolving photo series that tells the city’s story through its most iconic piece of infrastructure: the automobile.

Adali Schell and the urgency to tell stories through his shots

The project sprang from a personal urgency. Raised amid LA’s boulevards but with family roots in rural Ohio, Schell uses his camera to question his own sense of belonging. A broader reflection emerges: how the city’s obsession with cars—symbols of freedom yet also of urban alienation—shapes human relationships. In a place designed for driving, even friendship has to contend with endless lines of traffic and the impossibility of parking.

Despite his youth, the UCLA Fine Arts graduate already counts features in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Guardian, along with exhibitions at Les Rencontres d’Arles, the Museum of Warsaw, and Leica Gallery Los Angeles. Car Pictures confirms his talent for transforming everyday details into universal narratives: a parked car becomes a confessional, an overpass turns into a stage.