Golden Los Angeles

R

esearch, research, research. As I dig through my archives I remember pictures that I forgot. I shot this picture for Lonely Planet, but not for their guidebooks. It was for their trade books which most people call coffee table books. I didn’t shoot the entire book, just a chapter or so. At the time I was their “mister fix it” when another photographer didn’t hit the mark.

Working in Los Angeles was fun. The weather was that kind of California thing that is both warm and cool at the same time. Ten days there was a pleasure. Besides, I grew up around the corner in Long Beach.

I fixed shoots a lot. The one that wasn’t fun was in Montreal, Canada. I like Montreal a lot, but with deadlines this assignment had to be completed in the week between Christmas and New Year. Do you know how cold it is then? The snow is always frozen. New snow falls on top of it. That freezes. Over and over and over. There’s a good reason there are tunnels with shops and restaurants under downtown.

Anyway.

I’ll look into my archives and show you some of that shoot. When I first showed it to some friends they said I must have been miserable in the cold. I asked how they knew. It shows in the pictures they replied. Later, in the academic world I learned it wasn’t my misery they felt. It was their own misery at the thought of being so cold. The viewer always brings their past to the art.

That’s all I know for now.

Happy Monday.