Rodeo Drive, 1984 is a series of 41 images of shoppers on Beverly Hills' notorious shopping thoroughfare. The subjects appear caught unawares, glancing up as they walk or daydreaming while waiting to be served among shops and restaurants. Anthony Hernandez assumes the role of a dispassionate observer, recording the 1980s' big hair, broad shoulders and cinched waists in sunlit photographs.
 
Rather than merely documenting urban experience, Hernandez reveals the complexity of social spaces, implying economic disparity and racial division. Layers of socioeconomic tension emerge on a street that is an overt symbol of civic success. As Lewis Baltz observes, "These are the victors... enjoying the spoils of their victory on Rodeo Drive."
 
In the 1970s, Hernandez and contemporaries including Lewis Baltz and Terry Wild were interested in photographing Los Angeles's social landscape. His work appeared in the landmark exhibition The Crowded Vacancy at the Pasadena Art Museum, now the Norton Simon Museum, in 1971. It introduced audiences to a new kind of American landscape photography four years before New Topographics. Both exhibitions inspired an aesthetic movement that continues to resonate.
 
Anthony Hernandez, born in 1947, served for two years as a US Army medic in Vietnam before turning to photography in 1969. His projects include Landscapes for the Homeless (1988–1991), Waiting for Los Angeles (1996–1998), Pictures for Rome (2000) and Everything (The Los Angeles River Basin) (2003–2004).