Work In Progress: Last Post, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, 01-12-13

Echo Park Avenue & Montana Street, Near Sunset Boulevard

Echo Park Avenue & Montana Street, Near Sunset Boulevard

      It was cold, standing in the early morning shadows of Sunset Boulevard. The early morning light played games with me as I scrambled for the camera to make a shot and found the light had fallen off the subject, and at that particular moment, the direction and quality of the light would have to wait for another photographer’s eye.

   Sunset Boulevard is a four-lane ribbon of asphalt which connects diverse cultures and neighborhoods together. Sunset starts in the Barrio as East Cesar Chavez Avenue, then northward to the bourgeoisie enclaves of coffee shops and boutiques. And after a dogleg bend in its path, boutiques are replaced with skyscrapers casting shadows on the street-life below; until the ribbon of Broken Dreams finishes with the glamor of ”The Strip.“ In a few months Sunset Boulevard will go through its umpteenth restoration, and my year spent looking at it will be become a portal of memories and images.

See Sunset Boulevard Gallery

                                All Content ©Copyrighted 2012 Craig Carlson All Right Reserved

 

Work In Progress: Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, 11-18-12

  Early morning light would be held back until mid-morning, but wanting to work on Sunset was bigger than the weather report. Partly cloudy skies left light rain the night before which I drove north through from San Diego. Sunset Boulevard reflects its subtle changes; if you look. Advertisements are renewed for the branding of new desires and old ones the culture shapers do not want you to forget.

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Real Estate & Bill Board Graphic, Along Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California

    It’s all around, the meaning of life along Sunset, and It’s easy to read because it shouts at you in LARGE Helvetica type.

    Coffee houses are filling-up and the traffic thickens which chokes you away from your work as a photographer.

    Late morning arrives and the clouds part a bit to let directional light boldify facts, and in my mind’s eye I begin to develop the negatives made on this trip.

    Do the photographs push forward the meaning for making them or, have I covered this subject with no reason to expose another frame; am I chasing its twilight.

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Big Bird Graphic, Near Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California

  When do you know you have wrestled the truth to the ground and pinned it? Is it truth that throws in the towel or does the photographer decide there is no more of it hiding in his subject. It has been for me almost a year photographing Sunset Boulevard; a project like no other I have worked on. Rather than grandiose individual photographs of great resolve, I have made a hundred small cuts into this street, absorbing its stain into my reality, my camera.

See Sunset Boulevard Gallery

                                All Content ©Copyrighted 2012 Craig Carlson All Right Reserved