February 2018 Photography
Wired: A local gallery is featuring images from the mean streets of Beirut – far away – but the local streets are strange enough. Look around. Everyone is wired these days. ~ Wednesday, February 28, 2018
This One Corner: It’s just one corner of Hollywood – Sunset Boulevard between North Laurel Avenue and Hayworth – but it’s a fascinating block. There’s the big bronze-glass Directors Guild of America building – a visual treat on a stormy day. There’s that old Italianate building from the twenties – another fantasy from Norman O. Stiles that now houses the Laugh Factory and Greenblatt’s, the oldest deli in Hollywood. It’s spooky. F. Scott Fitzgerald ate his last meal there. And there’s that giant faded flag at the gas station on the corner that’s been there for decades. This is where the Sunset Strip starts – and it’s also home. ~ Tuesday, February 27, 2018
At the Clock Tower: Los Angeles sometimes looks like a Hitchcock movie – “Vertigo” perhaps. There’s that mysterious old clock tower on Santa Monica Boulevard at La Cienega in Hollywood’s theater district. That would scare Jimmy Stewart. And sometimes the light down there is extraordinary – bright and menacing at the same time. And of course that old clock tower doesn’t tell the time. Each face shows a different wrong time. Hitchcock would approve. ~ Monday, February 26, 2018
The Usual Suspects: A winter garden in Hollywood – high drama featuring the usual suspects – there are no seasons here. ~ Saturday, February 24, 2018
The Cold Beach: Venice Beach on a winter afternoon can be a cold place, or at least a curious place. ~ Friday, February 23, 2018
Fit for California: Muscle Beach – Venice Beach – and the basketball and handball courts and the rings and ropes – abandoned on a cold winter afternoon – Friday, February 23, 2018
Special Event Ahead: It’s that time again – for the Academy Awards – the Oscars. They’ve started assembling the bleachers and media pavilions on Hollywood Boulevard at the El Capitan and the Dolby theaters. It’s a mess, but in a week or two it will be glorious. For now, it’s only a raw geometric wonderland. The Academy Awards aren’t all that remarkable. It’s just the movies. Hollywood geometry is remarkable. ~ Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Dangerous Walls: Los Angeles street art is harmless enough. But there’s a problem when the walls stare back – with warnings of sorts. This started with a menacing wall at a liquor store in Little Armenia, and then there was more, everywhere. ~ Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Designer Clouds: A winter storm blew in – not one of those winter storms they have back east – just cold wind off the Pacific and odd clouds. Hollywood looked different – the Pacific Design Center looked different. The blue and green and red glass walls like the clouds. They’re designer clouds – and there’s the Sunset Strip and the big white Emser Building in West Hollywood. They liked the clouds too. This doesn’t happen often. This is what it looked like. ~ Monday, February 19, 2018
Extra Bright: Gardens shouldn’t be this bright in the middle of winter, but this is Hollywood. Everything is always bright in Hollywood. ~ Saturday, February 17, 2018
Hollywood Argyle: A walk around the block – Hollywood and Argyle – where there used to be a ratty old recording studio on the corner – where the Hollywood Argyles, a short-lived studio band, recorded their hit novelty-rock song “Alley-Oop” in 1960 – the one about the guy riding the dinosaur. Things have changed since then. ~ Friday, February 16, 2018
Look Out: The local streets the day after another school shooting – this one in Florida – seventeen dead. Now it all makes sense. ~ Thursday, February 15, 2018
Bathed in Light: There’s no subject matter here, unless the subject is light – the winter light down Museum Row, Wilshire Boulevard at Fairfax. That’s enough. The light is enough. ~ Wednesday, February 14, 2018
The Quiet Edge: The quiet edge of Hollywood is Griffith Park – the escape from the nonsense – the old neoclassical observatory up top and mysterious Fern Dell hidden below. The nonsense of Hollywood Boulevard isn’t far away, but it seems far away on a winter afternoon. ~ Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Photogenic Transition: The House of Blues on the Sunset Strip is now a large hole in the ground, with an impressive crane – another new chic hotel on the way – or luxury condos or something. The Sunset Strip is always in transition – but that only makes it more photogenic. Change is photogenic. ~ Monday, February 12, 2018
A Winter Morning: It was one of those winter mornings in Hollywood – dark skies at dawn – low clouds rolling in off the Pacific. They’d be no sun this day. But that only makes the neighborhood gardens glow even more. ~ Saturday, February 10, 2018
On the Darker Side: Hollywood is over. The glamorous past is long gone and the present is seedy. The old buildings from the Golden Age of Hollywood – the twenties and thirties – are all that is left in the winter sunshine. ~ Friday, February 9, 2018
Eyeing the Colors: Winter can be drab, even in Los Angeles, but not in the streets. The street artists take care of that. The colors pop. ~ Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Local Special Effects: The winter light on Hollywood walls – Sunset Boulevard at Stanley Avenue – a simple grid of shadows – the striped walls of an abandoned Moroccan restaurant – the Italianate walls of Bonham’s, the British auction house that has been there since the days of silent movies. It’s all quite cinematic. No special effects are necessary. ~ Tuesday, February 6, 2018
A Hollywood Prison: A Mid-Century Modern courtyard apartment building just off the Sunset Strip in Hollywood on a winter afternoon, looking a bit like a prison – but it is home. It’s been home for twenty-three years. The years roll by. Sometimes it does feel like a prison. ~ Monday, February 5, 2018
Poppies Plus: Ornamental poppies – Papaver orientale, Oriental poppies actually – Sunset Boulevard – and California poppies – Eschscholzia californica – nearby – and winter roses in the background – and February begins. ~ Saturday, February 3, 2018
Groundhog Day: Groundhog Day in Los Angeles – like the movie “Groundhog Day” where everything happens again and again – at Beverly and Fairfax, murals straight out of the sixties, and an old theater straight out of the thirties, and a bit of Art Deco. The rest is appropriately surreal, like in that movie. The past won’t go away. ~ Friday, February 2, 2018
February Shadows: There’s no famous groundhog in Hollywood who may or may not see his shadow. There’s no six more weeks of winter, but there are dramatic early February shadows. There are at Sunset-Gower Studios. ~ Thursday, February 1, 2018
Just Above Sunset 