Signs Of Other Times

LA is a great place to find old signs, shop window decorations, and old things in general.


Not that hundreds of years of European kind of old, but makes you think of black and white television old.


The great thing about them is that they are not trying for a retro look, they just are what they are.


This place sits in the semi-industrial wasteland bordering Burbank/Glendale. As I was taking pictures a man came - I think he might have been the proprietor - and asked me why I was photographing the store. I told him because it had character. He got it.


I'm now officially collecting old signs. Pasadena and Altadena have a bunch of them, and I'll have to drive over just for that.

The Wiener Factory Is No More

It was a nice overcast day, so I spent the better part of the morning driving around The Valley, listening to The Prairie Home Companion and hunting down things to photograph. The Wiener Factory (rip) is on Ventura Boulevard. I first spotted it while driving to the Sherman Oaks Arclight.
This Mexican themed mural is on small street, a block from Sherman Way.

I've been thinking of getting a GPS adapter for my camera. That way I could tag my photos with the exact location. Maybe I'll get it for myself for Christmas.

Little Green House

I went out photographing, just within walking distance on Sunday morning. I've noticed this cute little green house years ago. Earlier this summer it was up for sale, for too much, not that it mattered. Now it's standing empty. Out of curiosity I looked it up on Redfin and PropertyShark.

It's 1,033 sqft, sitting on a 5,804 sqft lot. It sold in 1989 for $220,000 and again in 2001 for the exact same amount. Then in 2006 it sold for $540,000. It seems to have foreclosed in August this year. It confounds me that people honestly found nothing unusual about the value of a house in a not so special neighborhood going up 245% in five short years.



Across the street used to be a yellow house, but it's gone now, replaced by an apartment building of nondescript color. I took a few pictures before it was gone, but my best shot was not of the house but the backyard.

Mish-Mash

The Big Chill

I shot these pictures a few weeks ago, South of the Glendale part of San Fernando Road. I'm not sure what that area is called. There is a huge Levitz furniture store there that closed recently. Now it's just a big white building and a huge empty parking lot. There are a row of small furniture stores right next though.

Behind them, there is a bit of an abandoned railroad with overgrown grass.

I walked down to the end where I found what seemed to be a homeless person's encampment.

It could have been a pile of rags or someone sleeping. I stopped and turned around. I figured it's rude to walk into somebody's bedroom, even if it's outdoors.

I have not been out photographing the past few weeks. I've been fighting a cold and obsessing over the economy. I spent the weekends drinking chamomile tea, and scouring the web trying to figure out which financial analyst is right and how much I should be worrying.

The weather has turned, the nice gloominess offers a welcome break from the relentlessly blaring sun. I should go out tomorrow and take advantage of this light. Unless if it's raining.

Obsession

obsession |əbˈse sh ən|
noun
the state of being obsessed with someone or something : she cared for him with a devotion bordering on obsession.
• an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind : he was in the grip of an obsession he was powerless to resist.

King of "Sun Vally", Take 2

Monster!

"Sun Vally"

I turned down on Pendleton Street only because of the canary yellow auto body shop on the corner. Being Saturday it was busy, cars parked all around, so I just jutted down the address and drove on. The street dead-ended with a beat up blue fence advertising Valley Mustang Auto Parts. I almost missed this rusty gate and and the drunken king, off to the side, but the breeze was banging the metal parts together, as if to get my attention. I can't make up my mind which cropping I prefer.

Some other photos from earlier this summer:

Side of a recycling place a couple of blocks from Tujunga. I have photographed this spot multiple time with varying success.

Back of a muffler place on Magnolia. I shot this in May. The place have been in the neighborhood as far as I can remember and probable longer.
On the door a "Notice of Belief of Abandonment" was taped, something about the rent not being paid for 14 months. The place is empty now, signs gone, all painted over in real estate neutral.

There are million different churches in The Valley.

I prefer shooting in evening or when the sky is overcast, storm is gathering. Those are rare times, but the colors are so much deeper. Shooting under the blinding Southern California sun is tricky.

From Fellini's Lost Photo Album

I call them found photographs, as in "found objects."

I went to check out the Vintage Paper Fair in Glendale. Most of the fare, especially the postcards, were pricey compared to what they usually are in antique stores. However I found one stall where there were boxes and boxes of photographs, almost all snapshots, for $ 1.- each. Perhaps not the cheapest, but fair. I must have spent at least an hour looking through them, and only saw a fragment.

The above photo was my best find. The woman in the busy floral blouse leaning in from the side, eagerly looking into the camera and trying to nudge her child do the same, but he is looking out of the frame, while two people in the background are apparently discussing shrubbery. It is an absolute masterpiece. Something about this photo reminds me of the films of Fellini, or even more, Woody Allen's homage to Fellini, Stardust Memories.

Valley Photos - May 25, 2008

More Photos of the Valley.

Poppies

I drove out to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. From a distance it looked like a monstrous chemical spill. The poppies were everywhere, inside the reserve and outside of it. Once I got there I was surprised how many people were there. Fortunately the many windy trails did a pretty good job dispersing the crowd. Of course everyone and their grandmother were carrying cameras. Me too of course: just another camera wielding lemming.

I was pondering about the role of the camera in hour leisure time. There seems to be this pressure to be having "fun" in our free time. The standard monday morning questions in the office are: "What did you do this weekend?" or "How was your weekend?". To the latter I usually reply "short" and that successfully diverts the course, but there is this lingering sense that I'm not utilizing my free time to the fullest, I should have gone bungee jumping, ran a marathon, gone to the beach, to a party, something. Vacations are the same thing in overdrive. If you are out of the office for a week or more you better be traveling or you are a some sort of loser. When we travel there is the pressure to take photographs to prove that we were there, having fun. Sometimes I feel the recording our fun is getting in the way of experiencing it.
I like driving around on little 2-lane highways. It's very relaxing. I saw some sagebrush that from a distance looked like a flock of sheep standing extremely still. Then I realized they were a flock of sheep standing extremely still. They were grazing.

California

More Urban Landscapes

I went out photographing today. It was bad time for it really: bright midday sun, harsh shadows. I snagged a couple ok shots anyway. There is the movie prop/antique store on a little street off Chandler. It does not fit with my landscape project, but it is there, so I took some photos. Thanks to the light and polarizing filter I got this somewhat odd image. I have yet been able to decide whether I like it.

Havana from Steamer

This picture is another mystery. I picked it up because I was intrigued by the inscription. There is no writing on the back, and I can't date it, but it is definitely of a very old Havana.

Old House

This empty, abandoned house used to stand on the corner of Vineland and Kittridge. It had a surprisingly large piece of land around it, maybe as a throwback to earlier era of the neighborhood. Someone once told me that the area used to be all orange groves in the old days. The property was all fenced around, but there was a convenient hole on the fence. I was eyeing the place for weeks, and when I saw the For Sale sign put up I decided to get a move on. One afternoon I climbed through the fence to take some pictures. The house was smallish and rather quaint. There was a boarded up gazebo in the back, and another building, tool shed or garage maybe. Behind it I found an old work bench. There was graffiti on most walls.

Just a few weeks after I took the pictures, the house mysteriously burned down. I climbed through the fence again. The roof of the house was gone and part of the front wall too. I could see a white fire place in what must have once been the living room. However the pine trees and the big old weeping willows were still standing, barely touched by the fire. A few weeks later all of it - house, gazebo, trees - were bulldozed down. They were supposed to build a big apartment building on the spot, but the lot is still vacant.

The Valley

Finally gentrification has crept into The Valley, hit North Hollywood and started spreading. The whole neighborhood is a curious mixture of dilapidated old commercial buildings, furious new development, graffiti, and out of whack real estate prices.