The Beach Today
Topic: West of Hollywood
California can be rather nice. The Santa Monica beach, Friday, September 15 - late morning - looking down from Palisades Park on Ocean Avenue, across Pacific Coast Highway, to the sand and beyond - using the telephoto lens. This is an exercise in composition and framing. 
Signs and Symbols
Topic: Light and Shadow
These two shots seem to be suffused with symbolism, but it's hard to figure out what is it. The man working is covering all that peace stuff with cheery blue skies, on Thursday, September 14, a dreary and dark afternoon in Los Angeles. The location is Sunset Boulevard at Formosa. It must mean something. It probably doesn't. 
The location is famous, sort of. Out here we have an odd sense of what makes for historical significance. This will have to do. The spectator is watching the billboard work.
Directly across the street, the ineffable sadness of Los Angeles - a palm tree that makes you want to shoot yourself for ending up out here, at the end of the world.
Hollywood Noir
Topic: Historic Hollywood
Hollywood - Cahuenga Boulevard, the block south of Raymond Chandler Square - film noir lives on in its surrealistic way. As Chandler said, "It is not a fragrant world."
See also - "Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off."
More -
"The pebbled glass door is lettered in flaked black paint: 'Phillip Marlowe … Investigations.' It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization. The door is locked, but next to it is another door with the same legend which is not locked. Come on in - there's nobody in here but me and a big bluebottle fly. But not if you're from Manhattan, Kansas. - The Little Sister
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window." - Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 13)
"She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket." - Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 18)
"From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away." - The High Window (Chapter 5)
"I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard." - The King in Yellow
"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Ana's that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge." - Red Wind (opening paragraph)
The Other Primary Colors
Topic: Color Studies
Three color studies - orange, green, yellow - noontime full light, Tuesday, September 12 - the first (Orange), Cosmo and Selma, central Hollywood; the second (green), just around the corner on Cahuenga; the third (yellow), Concept Art on Selma, at the corner of Wilcox (the intersection where Paris Hilton was arrested for DUI the previous Thursday night). 
American Glory
Topic: Geometric Shapes
Metal work - the shape of America in its glory days - a classic Cadillac fin, and the fender of the 1949 Buick Super Sport Convertible Eight - side by side on the lot at Frank Corrente Classic Cars on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Actually, it's Frank Corrente's Cadillac Corner at 7614 Sunset - as featured in a Sports Illustrated video ("Watch Swimsuit Model Yesica Toscanini in her photo shoot at Frank Corrente's Cadillac Corner!"). The fin is a 1959 Cadillac Coupe Deville with the original "Woodrose" exterior, and inside, the original rose "Coronado" cloth with rose metallic leather trim. Wow. But it's been sold, so you can't have it. The Buick is still available.
Six new photos of the Buick were added to the parent site, Just Above Sunset, Monday, September 11 - they rolled it out front and put the top down. That new page is here. 
