Santa Monica
I’ve been taking pictures of Los Angeles and putting them online since May 7, 2007. We had lived here a few years and photography gave me something to do as I drove to and from my work. There are 388 pictures so far, this was one of the first.
This is what I wrote about it then: “For a while I had this focus on the pedestrians with only the model’s legs and feet in the picture but then I realized that as usual the total composition was more interesting. I have two very basic LCD screen cameras, so often in daylight I have no particular idea where the borders of the shot are, which makes for an interesting random or un-orchestrated quality.”
Actually, it’s not that easy to find good images in upscale commercial areas. I know a painter/photographer who has a theory that kind of explains why: He believes that disparate graphic contributions over time create localized artworks that can then be framed by proper placement of the camera. If a business is profitable enough to control the large-scale visual environment, and starts fresh with each successive campaign, those stochastic picture elements don’t get the chance to accumulate. Still, we keep trying.
Santa Monica
Sometimes people want to know what I'm doing taking pictures—if I'm from the city, if I'm scouting locations, if I have a business card. The answer to all three is no. But the assumption seems to be, if you have a camera, you are here for a reason. And looking back I can see that photography has allowed me play a role however minor in the public life of the city that I wouldn't have been able to play otherwise. The role is not entirely real—my qualifications are, I picked up a camera and began shooting—but then, whose role is?
Wallflower
The camera intervenes. That is its utility. I am not describing something, I am asking the camera to. And it does a brilliant job, much better than I could. I even use a tripod and a timer so that I don't choose the moment. I can walk away if I want. And when the light is behind me in a certain way, I do walk away, so that the only shadow that appears is that of the camera.
Engines of Change
My father was a railroad man when young: he managed a rural depot in the Midwest, putting the afternoon mailbag out so the workers on the through train could collect it without stopping. The Union Pacific yard east of the Los Angeles River is a good place to go and remember whatever you know about trains, because it’s wide open and very quiet. I have had to move off the tracks for a passing train, but not often. For a city of 3.8 million, Los Angeles has a lot of places that are deserted or lightly traveled, and to move through these places is to experience reality as something like a dream or memory..
My Ride Is Here
In mass and state of repair, this car reminds me of a Caprice driven by a friend of mine when we were teenagers. It belonged to his uncle, but for some reason my friend got to drive it all the time. And he drove it hard. It was as if the rules that applied to cars—rules such as “don’t smash them into things”—had been suspended in this particular case. My friend would drive the Caprice through construction barriers at night so we could go speeding along Interstate 35 when it was under construction and essentially the world’s largest dirt road.
“I would have guessed somewhere in Ohio,” Mike S. commented on the website, and I think it’s true that LA often does not resemble the city of our expectations. Not mine anyway. I hadn’t figured on the vibrant colors, or the mountains, or all the scenes and situations that are makeshift and timeworn and somehow composed. I think I thought: glassy, modern, lacking in personality, which turns out not to be LA at all.
Smog Man and Ice Dancer
Having taken pictures of both Smog Man and Ice Dancer, I wonder what they would be like as a couple. Smog Man seems friendly yet reserved, even for an inanimate object, whereas one look at Ice Dancer and you can tell this is someone passionate and free who lives only to skate. But there is a fleeting compatibility in their gestures. Motionless in the sun, separated by 4.5 miles of Venice Boulevard, they reach out their hands, forever.
Con Estilo and Illusion Flower
The appearance of LA can change a lot depending on what time it is. I had driven by Illusion Flowers and the beauty salon next door many times without even noticing them when one evening the sun was coming down Third Street in such a way that they were practically blazing with color, all of a sudden the most amazing buildings in town. And I'm glad that I pulled over to take the pictures, because both buildings have since been repainted, and are not the same. The brilliant dangling sign is even gone.
