June 12th

June 8th

Palm tree art

                                                     On a palm tree in L.A., I found this. Palm tree art. Patterns, textures and markings either from nature or from chance encounters, depending on the marking.

January 21st

The final two pics were not taken by me. They are of flocks of starlings, taken in Europe, giant flocks that have arranged themselves in amazing formations.

The Cool Breeze Kickin'

The cool breeze and winds started kicking in and coming through a few days ago, but the coolness really kicked in today, the day that I've been waiting for since the last heat wave started: now that these cool breezes have kicked in, I can say that as long as these breezes are blowing, the heat wave has abated. I went out today through my part of Los Angeles (East Hollywood and Wilshire Center) and took loads of photos. Almost all of them are great, even though there are no wide shots or camera quality zooms, because I used only my mobile phone camera today, it's a Samsung Android phone camera which does have a zoom feature, but pictures taken with high zoom tend to show blurriness rather than highlighting in crisp detail the aspects that I was zooming on. So I don't use the zoom much.

The cool breeze is kickin', and I was out there to enjoy it. It really was a pleasant day out there today, I'm glad I waited till today. I could've went yesterday but today was better.

I still wish it was 1987, but hey I make do with 2012.

 

I'm glad the cool breezes came back through Los Angeles so I can get back to my activities and studies out there, until the next summer heatwave comes and it again gets too hot to comfortably walk these streets for a length of time.

My neighborhood

My neighborhood, my part of L.A. is a little-publicized, fascinating old school part of Los Angeles which hasn't changed much from how it was in the 1980s and 1990s.  South East Hollywood, East Hollywood and Wilshire Center. When I walk these streets I'm reminded of the great paintings of the modern and post-modern era, Picasso and Basquiat, Ernst and Miro, De Kooning, I'm reminded of Garbage Pail Kids, Bukowski comes to mind, my childhood and boyhood and teenage years come to mind, I grew up here.


I walk these streets at different times of the day---morning, noon, afternoon and early evening---often taking photographs with my Canon camera or the camera on my Samsung Android mobile phone, at my side usually a small plastic grocery bag with one or two plastic bottles of water in there. Only when the weather is too hot do I hold back from these city blocks. I walk and go through these streets like Spider-Man swang through New York City in the 1980s Marvel Comics, snapping photographs and looking for action---not looking to get into trouble, but if some trouble pops off I am sometimes there to see it, see part of it, or see the aftermath. More often I just see the helicopters circling blocks away and the responding units on their way.

There are really few if any persons who do this in my part of the city. I've seen hardly any, if any, other persons doing this. These streets can be dangerous, often when you least expect it. But most activities can be or are dangerous. Driving is dangerous. Eating a sandwich can be dangerous. I've had few problems on these streets. I've found a lot of what I was looking for on these streets. On many of these streets I can imagine it's 1989 or 1992, and hardly another person in sight many times even in broad daylight on some of these streets.

These several photos that I've posted here are a sample and a glimpse of my part of Los Angeles and of my photography style. In these pics though, you can get an idea and a clear accurate look into my neighborhood as it actually is.