Urban Struggle

So, in my line of work, I spend a lot of time in urban environments. Most of the time, this can be pretty depressing... Ugly buildings, ugly streets, ugly advertisements everywhere... So, when I come across something unique I try to capture it in an effort to isolate it from the miles and acres of crud...

The Sands Apartments, Gardena, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

The Sands apartments in Gardena, CA. features a wonderful mid-century entrance of blue tiles and amazing metal stars. I chose to shoot it with black and white (100 asa) film in order minimize the poor light and blight of the scene...

Water truck Riverside, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

While on a school expansion site, I came across this hideously beautiful water truck. Equipped with over sized tires to tackle any terrain, "safari" windshields (they are hinged and "flip" upward and out of the way to allow for air circulation (I'm SURE this beast doesn't have any air-conditioning!) and a killer faded yellow and green paint scheme...

"FE5KA" Fontana, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

While I am not an advocate of most graffiti, I do make exception for pieces on train cars. I'm not exactly sure why, but they do not offend me the way painting on walls, signs, dumpsters etc. I am especially drawn to the colorful or whimsical pieces...

"DIAR FOREVER!!" Fontana, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

WWII Air Raid Siren, Gardena, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

With Los Angeles being the largest Southern California city (population) and nearby Long Beach and San Pedro being ports for U.S. Navy warships during World War II the area was thought to be a natural target for the Japanese Naval fleet.

As such, the greater metropolitan area is littered with now defunct "air-raid" sirens. The one pictured here sits among the low-rent apartments of South East Los Angeles and is nondescript enough that I'd wager that people who've lived in it's shadow for years have never given it any thought.

Whenever I am in older (non-gentrified) neighborhoods, I keep an eye out for them. When renovating neighborhoods, the city usually removes the sirens...

I chose to shoot it with black and white (400 asa) film in order to define it from the grey building and grey sky...

-Mike

Night VS. Day...

To a photographer, light is everything. Though I know that to be true, there are times when I am overwhelmed, visually, by what the light reveals and I long for the night.
The night conceals the ugliness of the urban sprawl. The darkness hides away the blight of the strip-malls and cookie cutter storefronts. The darkness also distills the urban landscape and allows the rare and magnificent to be identified from what in day-light is clutter and chaos.

Bordered on all sides (literally) by ultimately forgettable storefronts and architectural clutter by day, Leonardo's in Los Angeles, CA. becomes a gem after the sun sets...

"Leonardo's" Mike Vega © 2012

There are things that seem mundane and forgettable in daylight, that only reveal the truth of their existence when they allow themselves to be seen.

Below is such a place. In 1978, Tom Waits released Blue Valentine and on this album is a track called "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun". In that song is the lyric "now there's a place off the drag called the Gilbert Hotel, there's a couple letters burned out in the sign..."

The "drag" in his song is Hollywood Blvd., and the Gilbert Hotel is very real, and still there today. There is in fact, as of this post "a couple letters burned out in the sign" as well (I chose to shoot the side of the building that had all of the wonderful letters lit...).

For a music fan like me, seeing and photographing something like this is very special. As the darkness of this shot suggests, the hotel is off the drag, and as lonesome as the song suggests.

Gilbert Hotel Los Angeles, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

Some things or places have an identity that, like a person, changes after nightfall. Places and things are often "invisible" to us in the bright light of day, yet late at night, they can radiate like a lighthouse and draw us in like moths to a flame...

Los Angelenos know this to be especially true with Pinks, the iconic eatery is open during the day but comes alive late at night, when the patrons of concerts, bars and clubs pour out in the streets of L.A. and search for comfort food.

Pink's Los Angeles, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

Now that isn't to say that I am "anti-daylight", I just find that when surrounded by the ugliness of the modern urban landscape defining the interesting and unusual can be more of a chore. There are moments though...

Roadside flowers can seem ordinary, but upon closer inspection and with a little luck, the become very interesting...

©Mike Vega 2012

It's no secret that I love parking lot carnivals, day or night. Though it is often difficult to isolate images among the tightly laid out floor plan of a carnival, and the lighting is often not ideal, but when you do it can be very rewarding...

"Paratrooper" Fullerton, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

I was at this carnival one day before it opened, it was cool and gray and quiet. The carnies were asleep in their motorhomes and except for a few seagulls, I was all alone with the rides and stands. I imagined for a moment the noise and smells and sounds that would pervade this place once they opened for business and enjoyed the quiet all that much more...

©Mike Vega 2012

So who wins? 

I guess it's the one who takes the time to find the extraordinary among the ordinary.

Cheers.

The Process...

I often hear or read quotes from artists such as film makers or musicians saying that for them, the reward of a project is in "the process". That is to say, that the work of doing something is enough for them, and that the product of the work is irrelevant to the point where some never see/hear it.

El Cortez Hotel San Diego, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

As a photographer, I enjoy the making of a photograph. Whether it is something that I organized, or if it is capturing something in the moment that I happen upon it. 

There is something about the finality of shooting film photographs and the knowledge that if it's wrong, you won't know it until later when you develop the film. This permanence of the image adds to the excitement of that moment. 

The camera, settings, framing, film type and speed, lens choice etc. etc. this IS the process. You take of these pieces and put them together in your mind and hope that 1+1=2.

The process is wonderful, but...

The Donut King II. Gardena, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

The product has a relevance all it's own. The result of the process can be wonderful or disastrous, or worse, mundane.

Regardless of what lens you chose, or how long you waited for the sun to be in just the right position, or the subject to give you just the right look, the image has to stand on it's own or in my opinion, what is the point? 

Napoleone Pizza House (once the employer of one Tom Waits) National City, CA. ©Mike Vega 2012

Perhaps one day, results won't mean anything to me (I hope that never happens...), but for now I will enjoy the satisfaction (or disappointments) of seeing the results of thoughtfully preparing, staying aware, and working to improve.

*All of these photos were made using my trusty 1985 Canon AE-1 with Legacy Plus 100 B/W 35mm film (processed at home).

Opportunity...

People are often heard saying that "time flies as you get older". We know it's not that they believe that time is actually accelerating as they age, but that our perception of the passage of time changes.

The more things that you are forced to cram into one day, the less time it leaves for each. That's math! Likewise, the less time that you are devoting to each project, task or activity, the more likely that the quality of that endeavor is going to suffer.

Vintage Ferris Wheel. Parking lot carnival. Fullerton, CA. © Mike Vega 2011

Kodak 400 ISO B/W film

I know full well, that we are all adding things to our daily agenda (without the balance of dropping other things), as a matter of necessity. But what as a result is being squeezed so hard that it breaks? 

"Space Invader" (France) piece. Los Angeles, CA. © Mike Vega 2012

Canon AE-1 Redscale 100 ISO 35mm film

I think that for a lot of people I know, it ends up being creative things. Art projects for example. Things that you are inspired to do, but that are not a "necessity". I think that if you reflect even on a single year, the things that will stand out as particularly important, will be the things that weren't necessities in the traditional sense of the word, but that in hindsight are actually the most necessary of all.

The "Art Deco" Olive Motel. Los Angeles, CA. © Mike Vega

Canon AE-1 Redscale 100 ISO 35mm film

Things that capture your imagination, be it a concert, a painting that you created, a trip to a museum exhibit, a road-trip with friends, something that full-filled the notion of "doing something", and not just the necessity of doing what needs done.

Mid-Century Tahiti Motel. Anaheim, CA. © Mike Vega

Kodak 400 ISO B/W film

The photographs in this update are all images or scenes that I happend upon while doing something else, and by having a camera with me I was able to make the most of these small opportunities and capture something that I found unique, inspiring, or at the least, interesting.

One of the joys (and frustrations) of choosing to shoot film over digital images, is the delay between when an image is captured, and when it is finally revealed through processing. Sometimes the developed image looks nothing like what you were trying to capture... sometimes, you see the image and get an amazing feeling of realizing that you managed to capture exactly what is was that made you lift your camera to your eye that day (or night). These moments are the ones that become the something, they are what is necessary to keep you shooting, or painting, or printing, or writing, or creating...

starting...

having grown up in southern california, but also having traveled the U.S. quite a bit i have come to realize that commercialism and franchising is quickly taking a toll on the individuality of the cities of this country.

when i am out, shooting or otherwise, i always take notice of the unique. be it architecture, signage (I love unique signage!), landscapes, found objects, what have you.

Sandy Vitale Dance Studio Gardena, CA.

© Mike Vega 2012

it is these things that i am attracted to, and what i choose to photograph. not merely to capture them, but to preserve them in some small way because they are rapidly disappearing. the quirky diner down the street is razed to build a mc donald's, the mid-century apartment building with 1,000 square ft. units is bull dozed to build a boring modern structure with "living" spaces 1/2 the size, at 2x the rent...

Preston and Simons Mortuary Riverside, CA.

© Mike Vega 2012

so i try to capture what interests me, in the way that i perceive it. this, to me, means using film photography.  for several reasons -- it's warmth, it's flaws, and the tactile experience of it. loading, composing, "metering" (more on that later...) adjusting, selecting cameras, lenses, film types, etc. i love all of it.

Preston and Simons Mortuary Riverside, CA.

© Mike Vega 2012

so, if any of this makes sense to you, welcome. if it does not, maybe someday it will, when every corner of every city in the country looks exactly like the next or last.