Once upon a time in LA … I was in a cab at 5:00am with a Mc Breakfast and an orange juice on my to Venice Beach.
The truth is I love LA, and Santa Monica especially, without the people. There it is, I said it. Who likes people at 5am? I do love the cab drivers who frequently make it possible for me to see the ocean at sunrise before my 8am breakfast meetings back in downtown LA, and of course the ones who shuttle me back to my hotel in San Francisco when I walk too far to make it back in time, and I can’t forget the Seattle baristas whipping up chai lattes for me as soon as their doors open, because these lovely morning people make the impossible a reality, capturing the stolen waking moments before these cities awake.
I love cities in the early morning fog, the uninterrupted steam escaping from manhole covers in NYC, leaving cash with sleeping homeless wanderers passed out in sleeping bags propped up against bus shelters in Toronto, and on this day, the sound of my Vans on the board walk down the pier past Pacific Park.
Tell me the truth, you photographers out there, don’t you all pride yourselves on capturing the perfect angle, the quintessential moment when there are exactly zero people in your frame?? Isn’t that the essence of “Landscape”? Especially when you are on a busy street, or park, or beach or even at a car show where you can blur the masses into the background?? If you say different, you are lying.
“True travellers have no destination and do not know when they will arrive.”
Someone said that once, I can’t remember who at the moment, but I’ll be god damned if they woke up at 5am to be photobombed on the pier by a family from Wisconsin. Haha I know, I know… too harsh?
Well forgive my seeming sarcasm because in cities all across America, and some here at home in Canada, I hung my suits and pressed shirts in hotel closets and slipped into my knee length cut off jean shorts, slid my bare feet into my Vans, and sometimes added a puffy Patagonia down sweater for the crisp hours before the sun rose and I walked these iconic streets with my Canon T7i before heading back to the suits and meetings and pointy shoes.
If you didn’t know, there is magic escape act in dressing like you are a skater and popping a Canon over your shoulder and a beanie on your head. That little box and lens open closed gates and minds like a cloak of anonymity and acceptance.
“Oh, you have a camera…go ahead. Please, let me get out of your way.”
It is like the Kings Magic clothes only better, they see you, you aren’t naked (hopefully) and still they unreservedly open their secret worlds to you. Nod your head if you know what I mean.
Are you with me? Come with me.
This is LA… the other LA
Pale Blue Reminders 