This Is The City

I was working in Los Angeles, which was fun because I grew up there, well, really in Long Beach, which is different but kind of the same.

I was doing another book assignment with a long list of potential subjects. One was The Disney Music Hall.

I wandered around the entire hall making pictures as I went. I found this slightly blooming tree. Ah Ha, I thought, what a good contrast to all this bright metal. I also thought I was so clever until I found that just about every photographer who makes pictures there finds this side of the building and the tree.

Oh well.

I wanted to go inside, but even with their marketing department’s permission, you can’t because you need an escort and a maintenance person to turn on the lights and the air conditioner.

Of course, the building is huge and it wouldn’t cool down in the half hour I needed to be inside.

I did get to go on the roof because you can just walk on the exterior stairs to get there. There’s a chain gate, but the watchman told me to just jump over it.

So I did.

It wasn’t great place to make pictures of the music hall, but there are great views of downtown Los Angeles.

That was a bonus picture that my editors loved. This is a great example of photographer’s luck.

I keep experimenting with synthetic media because it’s here now, and will influence everyone for years to come so I want and need to understand it.

But, it doesn’t move me.

My pictures have always had a kind of humanness about them. Unless I get pleasantly surprised, generative AI is cold and distant.