Faded Stars
Topic: Historic Hollywood
There will be more photography late Monday evening or Tuesday. The Labor Day weekend calls for a trip south, down San Diego way, to join the family for some relaxing - away from the computer and all that. It's a small vacation, but it will do.
The from-the-ground-up redesign of the weekly magazine-style Just Above Sunset was exhausting. But that is done, and the new issue has been posted. Time to relax.
As a parting shot, or shots, detail of one of the Hollywood murals - Delores Del Rio on a wall on Hudson at Hollywood Boulevard, still dancing with Fred Astaire (you no doubt remember the movie). 
Across the street? Get your Star Burgers.
Reference shot - the Delores Del Rio mural on Hudson at Hollywood Boulevard -
Natural Abstracts
The wall of a tattoo parlor on the north side of Hollywood Boulevard - these needed no fancy processing. They're just abstracts. They tell no story. But they are reasonably strong compositions.
This was Friday, September 1 - 1:30 in the afternoon, shooting straight up into a cloudless sky on an excruciatingly sunny day. 
Perspective - The Vanishing Point
Perspective - The Vanishing Point
This is the west coast headquarters of CNN on Sunset Boulevard, as seen, down an alley, from Hollywood Boulevard, Friday, September 1, mid-afternoon. Larry King is in there somewhere taping his evening show. That's the vanishing point. 
Abstracts
Topic: Technical Exercises
Palm Maps - the palm outside the kitchen window - heavily processed. In the old days this would fall under "darkroom work." Messing around with the development process, masking stuff, trying diffenet exposers and working with smelly chemicals in the shadows. Now the darkroom is PhotoShop. 
The raw material -
It's All In the Framing
Topic: Technical Exercises
It's just so California…
As seen from the rear, the steeple at The Church of the Blessed Sacrament (6657 Sunset Boulevard - Beezer Brothers, architects, 1928). This was the first Catholic Church in the Hollywood area (1904), and the boom of the twenties along with the explosive growth of the film industry led to this edifice. This was the parish church for Irene Dunne and Loretta Young, and where Bing Crosby married his first wife (Dixie Lee) in September 1930. The funeral of Carole Lombard's fiancé Russ Columbo was held here in 1934 - with pallbearers Bing Crosby, Gilbert Roland and Zeppo Marx.
Shift the frame slightly and you get the fake lighthouse that's part of Crossroads of the World (6671 Sunset Boulevard - Robert V. Derrah). This was built as "the world's first modern shopping center" in 1936 - Streamline Moderne, Spanish Colonial, Tudor, Moorish and French Provincial styles, all mixed together. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the 1993 film "Indecent Proposal" Demi Moore worked in a real estate office here. Crossroads of the World also plays its part in the 1997 film noir "L.A. Confidential" - Danny DeVito worked for a tabloid in one of the offices. It's in many other films. It's very odd. It's kind of a cruise ship and kind of not. Previous shots were posted here and here.
Mixed mode - new Thunderbird and an SUV, an old church, and the skyline of downtown Los Angeles - the late morning view from Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, 25 August -
