City of Angels

los angeles, january 2002

It's sometimes said that LA is a city without a heart. In a geographical sense that is entirely true, but in the metaphorical sense in which is usually meant, it's only partially true. LA is very precisely a city OF the heart, in the sense that it not only lives up to but usually exceeds its own mythology.

I have visitied LA regularly over the last five years, and completely failed to find a way of photographing it. The standard tropes of street photography fail in LA, unless you are willing to restrict yourself to Venice Beach or that drag of Hollywood Blvd between Highland and La Brea.

This time I took a digicam, and for some reason it seemed to help me crack the nut of LA. The first night I was there a storm had just passed through and when I went out onto the hotel roof, the clouds were picking up the light from the city, balancing the light from the pool. Everything was wet and glistening, and eerily quiet for LA.

The next couple of days I spent some time on Sunset, on the plush part of the strip around the Chateau Marmont, and also on the gasoline alley just south of the Walk of Fame, where the remnants of Route 66 are still visible.

I like LA: this is pretty much what it looks like to me.