August, 7, 2005 archives

today’s exercise in misdirected energy was walking up and down broadway and taking a picture of every building (and parking lot).

it took less than two hours to take all of the pictures — and over six to get them all uploaded to flickr. i didn’t retouch (other than rotate) any of them, and i uploaded every one i took: 231 pictures.

they aren’t all of buildings and parking lots — there’s a few shots of some people in action. a paletero walking by the los angeles times building, a riding vacuum cleaner also outside the los angeles times building, a three card monte game, and a shell game.

the last few pictures are out of sequence because i screwed up adding them to the flickr set. i wish iphoto and flickr were more seamlessly integrated, and the iphoto interface for adding titles and comments to pictures wasn’t so lame. i guess i should play with flickrexport.

some of the buildings aren’t labeled as well as they could be. i need a handier resource for looking up the names of buildings in downtown.

the plan, unless it changes, is to do the same thing for main and spring streets (and maybe hill). and then keep doing it every year.

some more movies being screened at the laemmle grande 4-plex in downtown los angeles. it’s like downtown’s own little documentary film festival.

• abel raises cain: a documentary about alan abel, a grand-scale prankster.
• blitz attack: the andrea hines story: a documentary about the murder of a girl by her 13-year old friend.
• dimmer: a short documentary about a blind teenager growing up in a rough neighborhood in buffalo.
• lady of the house: a short documentary about a feminine young male doing chores in the house he shares with his partner.
• one six right: a documentary about van nuys airport.
• the boys of baraka: a documentary about twenty boys from baltimore who attend a boarding school in kenya.
• the devil’s miner: a documentary about a 14 year-old miner who worships the devil.
• the letter: an american town and the ‘somali invasion’: a documentary about a mayor in maine who sent an open letter after 9/11 to his town’s somali residents telling them to ask other somalis not to move to their town.
• the seed of faith: a short documentary about situations where “hope and faith are the key to survival.”

the site for one six right mentions that they expect all of the showings to sell out, so maybe that applies to all of these screenings in general. and here i had figured that they were probably playing to some empty houses just to satisfy the academy qualification requirements.

wired news happened to publish an article about a9.com’s block view, which they generate by driving around in a van with a specially mounted camera hooked up to gps equipment. here’s the block view of broadway in downtown los angeles, which you may also recognize from my photo set yesterday.

on the whole photo thing, i have this vague idea that i should get a real digital slr camera and learn what i’m doing. but i’m loathe to spend money on a camera that i may not end up using much, so i am able to resist the urge for now. we’ll see how much i keep going with my current photo-taking forays.

i thought briefly about taking a photography course at someplace like la city college, but i’m not terribly interested in non-digital photography. i’ve already done my time in a darkroom.

i wondered how the folks at a9.com dealt with the driving-by-a-bus problem. it turns out they don’t. that makes some shots rather less than useful. but it does mean i can say that the shots of broadway were taken in early october or late september of 2004. the ads for taxi on the bus were the telltale sign.