street photography

Trying to publish this on a mobile device as I wait for an endless rebuilding of my photo library on my Mac. I’ve had the worst time with technology since the beginning of the year… This is not a fun repetitive experience for a prolific digital arts creator. There are times when I fantasize about getting the hell away from all of it and going “primitive” – but that’s impossible to do in these times. Plus, it would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As our plague times carry on, it seems that with the usual stresses of life turned inside out, the ones that are perpetual are right in our laps, and moving in for direct eye contact. I think about how the first 2 months of isolation were novel (like this plague), and in our family that meant hunkering down and cooking and eating well at every meal. No more sandwiches for lunch, unless they were made with leftover chicken roasted the night before. Baking with the kids. Everything has centered around nourishment.

Now however, we’re all trying to get out of the house more regularly. This past weekend we went for our first long drive in months. In LA, not moving great distances in a vehicle routinely is a sort of deprivation. When I lived in NYC, you got around on foot and by subway. Here, it’s the car. And with lack of density in most areas, you’re always zooming around in places with a lot of sky. And sun. Even walking a city block here feels like it’s forever because of lack of shade, lack of crowds, lack of lots to do on the block. It’s a city that was built as if it were a ranch.

In living here over 20 years now, I know that’s its rhythm. And while it also exhausts me, in a different way than NYC (trailing off into nothing vs being crushed by everything), being out of its loop feels depressing at this point. And I really understood that after I took my first “on the move” pandemic street shots this past weekend. Even with all the sorrow of seeing closed stores and people in masks, this is my life right now. It’s what I’m married to.

With the help of a new art friend in my virtual art community, who understands my work really well, and with whom I’ve recently had some very interesting discussions, I also have started to realize what really “gets” me in terms of inspiration, and what that means foundation-wise as well. Let’s say for now, that I can’t imagine not going back to street photography after this past weekend’s drive. Following are some of the 70+ pics I took then: