This past Saturday right before sunset, I walked over to the Venice Canals to shoot a little bit. It's been a while since I walked over there (and a while since I shot), so it was refreshing to get out and see something "new." I've been spending a lot of time on Flickr lately, getting a lot of great inspiration - so I found I was suddenly seeing things differently. It's springtime so a lot of the flowers and trees are coming into bloom, and the canals area was full of all kinds of great flowers to play with. The evening light was great and a lot of the colors were really popping.
It was also really interesting the dichotomy of wealth and poverty. The canals area is about 2 blocks from the beach, so it's all million-dollar homes. But not all are single-family homes with full-time residents. Some are vacant vacation homes, others are rentals, others are just empty waiting for a buyer. So the streets are packed with a variety of cars - anything from Porsche & Mercedes to broken-down 1980 Toyota's. Signs and sides of buildings are all tagged with graffiti, and there is surprisingly a lot of neglect in terms of general upkeep of the properties. Some are beautiful but others are really falling apart.
Long story short it was a great reminder that class plays a huge part in the story of LA. The gulf between the uber-wealthy and the homeless, and those of us at varying degrees of in-between. It makes for some very interesting subject matter.
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2 comments:
Hi Paul & Thanks for stopping by my blog yesterday. We used to live in northern CA a few years back; miss it and your blog opened the flood gates. Never got to Venice Beach (only in CA a couple of years) but enjoyed Napa Valley and the beaches along Santa Cruz. This Friday I will post some Cruz pics - not a professional by any means but check it out and let me know what you think. Have a great week!
So true! LA is so full of extremes and strangely, the contrasts are so close to each other - in any given area.
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