hurricane

i met hurricane just around the corner.

what you need

i was at aud's and derek's old place, a top floor loft facing main st. we watched a battalion of police officers cuff some dude, and haul him away. he had a plastic bag with him that he dropped by the sidewalk.
when i left aud's i grabbed the bag, carried it home and photographed the contents.

cadence

i found a row of buicks on imperial in south LA, and i thought they had a nice little tempo.

(three 4x5 b/w negs stitched together in PS)

commonplace

i don't live in downtown los angeles anymore. i was there for seven years, living on crocker st. rat infested trash heaps housing drug addled homeless prostitutes. fuck. paranoia lurks everywhere.
kind of.
so now i live in echo park... big deal...except now when i go downtown i see changes literally all over the place. so i say to myself, thank my fucking lucky stars i was not idle.
just about all the views i have of downtown, show the city just before it fell over the edge of gentrification mountain.
listen to me, downtown LA has totally changed. it is riddled with checkbooks, beamers, and perfect smiles.
all that grit and slime is seeping out and whats left is not as interesting.
above is a good example of before "the change".
this has to be one of the oldest parking structures in LA.
for years this building on 9th and Hill, i think, stood slowly collecting grime, soot, syringes, broken windows, graffiti, used rubbers, blood, and families and families of rats, as well as serving as a valuable source for parking, has now joined the dandy lot, the prancing pony club.
sandblasted, fresh paint, new windows and blah blah blah. basically fucked it.
i know i know, that sounds kind of negative, call me sentimental. i like the way time leaves its mark. especially on something so glorious as downtown los angeles.

HAIKYO
this is a Japanese word that describes a sentiment and fascination with the decay of architecture.

leroy

leroy, I met him a few blocks from my old place, aound 11th and san pedro. he was dropping off his laundry.
he agreed to let make take some photos. it was also raining that day, as you can see. I like when it rains in los angeles,
which is seldom, nobody is ever ready for it and it changes the way things look.
come to think of it, leroy was pretty well prepaired.

wabash

I took this picture on Wabash st in east LA. I am afraid I could not let this
architectural oddity pass me by. I thought the add-ons to the initial structure
were really worth photographing. its two 4x5 b/w frames stitched together
in photoshop.

spinning top

this tree now stands alone after the city set a boatload of uncomfortable boulders around the base of its trunk.
there used to be regulars that would spend time in the shade on the wall, but I guess the city deemed them an unsavory lot.
glad I got this shot before it changed.

inmo

side A



side B

I was sitting at banquette, with inmo and maybe patric and steve, at 4th and main a couple of years back, in the hey day of the locals, when that strange silver haired security guy walks up and incongruently says, "hey, does anyone want a real prison shank?".
we are like uhh? whats this cooky guy going on about now. then he proceeds to produce from his pocket this scabby little nasty street knife. I was a little slow on the uptake, normal, and inmo was thinking pretty quick. he grabs it and puts it in his pocket, just as I am realising what it is. damn! shit! fuck! i am thinking and inmo can see my desire. I must photograph that thing!
I literally had to pry that nasty grubby object of bad energy from inmo's hands after days of persuasion.
I know he was enjoying the torment I was going through. devellish little bastard, still love him though.

two corners

two corners that have forever changed. both of these frames were taken around mid 2004.
its so different on both of these corners now,

the image below is 5th and broadway, now there is a rite aid drug store, and the building is gentryfied.




and this is 8th and broadway, also a new loft gentryfication job, with a necklace of biege planters and cute mini pines.



I suppose I should be thinking about reshooting these two corners, but now that they are glammed up they don't have the same appeal.

crack pipe of some sort

I was walking down San Pedro St, just having crossed 6th, and en-route to 5th, when I stepped over some neatly folded newspaper, I took a few more paces and then stopped. for some reason I had not stood on that folded piece of newspaper. my curiousity went on auto pilot. I unwrapped the paper and this fucking filthy ass crack-pipe was all bundled up and still in one piece and now in my hands. good job I had my shoulder bag with me, unfortunatly I had to carry that filthy piece of shit with me for the rest of the afternoon, but, I got it back safe for a photograph.
I guess you just never know whats in a nicely folded piece of newspaper on the ground in the street.

9th & broadway

I must of had about 120 various images of LA posted on this blog, and with some really wonderfull comments. but I think it was all too much and too many. so I pulled all the postings from the last year or so and I decided to also remove the comments option. so the plan is to have a more refined edit for the time being.
just in case you are wondering.
the images above are from 9th and broadway here in downtown LA.
the building looks like it used to be a dept store, but its been sitting suspended like this for some time. the developers seem to be going through spurts on the gentrification of this building. personally I like it just the way it is.
I realize this block will change, but I enjoy it while I can.
the developers, in my oppinion, always try and pretty up their investments, but rarely do I like the beige and planters.
I prefer the accumulation of artifacts and the build up of layers of grit and grime that occur over long periods of time. it tells me something about a place.

downtown LA portraits

a triptych of portraits made in downtown LA.
the woman on the far left was definitely on a "jones", she was getting impatient and so I gave her a few bucks towards her cause.
the guy in the middle was a little scary, and I was havig a hard time shooting him with the view camera because he kept thinking that after I would appear from the dark cloth that the shot had been taken and he would start moving again, also I was shooting at a 30th / sec, a pretty slow shutter speed.
the girl on the right seemed intriguing because she was really so beautiful, but with a closer inspection of the shot you can see things are not ok and she probably had a jones too.

the way to the citadel

here is the complete set of four views. the story behind this vehicle is worth noting.
I came out of my place sometime ago, to come face to face with this van. it suddenly appeared from nowhere. no engine or drive train, and all the cardboard, dust and pin/ups still intact. how could this be possible. somebody must have towed this thing over to my doorstep very very gently, not to disturb any of the artifacts. people were shooting up and screwing in there, and when I came out with my view camera, they opened up the door and took off.
I took these four views, and the next day the thing was gone.