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Los Angeles, California
Show sympathy to LA where the sun don't ever shine
Since the old days when I used to carry around an APS film camera, I have struggled to take what I felt were decent pictures of Rafael Moneo’s Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles. Not from the outside- where the lighting and angles are great- but from the inside, where the space feels amazing and the pictures look less so.
The latest camera that I have to go up against the formidable Our Lady of the Angels interior is my pocket(ish) point and shoot, a Sony RX100 M4. I love DSLRs, but I hate how heavy they are and, far more than that, I hate changing lenses and getting a little spec somewhere inside. I love my iPhone camera since it’s always on me but it’s not quite there yet, almost but not yet. That leaves me to the RX100 M4, which fits in my pocket (although its heavy and is really just a bit too big to be a real pocket point and shoot), and sometimes takes a while to turn on and get ready (a bit annoying when you want a quick shot without drawing attention to yourself) but overall is a pretty good compromise. As for the interiors, well, it’s also getting closer but still not quite there. That does of course mean that I’ll have to come back whenever I get a new camera to try again, as if I really need another reason to visit once again a building and space that I really do love.
A good part of this trip involved me taking my father to two baseball games. The first one was at the absolutely spectacular Dodgers Stadium on Thursday and the other one was earlier today in Anaheim. Under a warm sun, the Angels played the A's in an alliterative battle involving a grand slam home run (sorry Angels) and an eventual come from behind win (sorry A's). Although by the time of those final 9th inning heroics, my father and I had abandoned the heat of inland Orange County for near perfect weather at a dockside restaurant in Marina Del Rey, wondering why the whole damn stadium wasn't doing the exact same thing.
I first visited the Getty on my first visit to Los Angeles in 1998. It had just opened, reservations were required and it was packed. I loved Richard Meier’s buildings and courtyard but, at the time, was disappointed in the Robert Irwin designed central garden. Maybe I’ve grown since then or, more likely, maybe the garden has grown in since then, as now the central garden is the first place I go and my favorite place there.
I may visit the Getty and its garden just about every time I’m in Los Angeles (maybe not every time, but definitely more than every other time), but my apparent love of gardens never made it all the way to Pasadena, until now, All this time I was missing out on seeing The Huntington, impressive botanical gardens and a museum and a library on a sprawling estate, one that I spent a few hours exploring, but probably not as much time as I should have.
From Pasadena it’s actually possible to get to the Pacific Ocean by train, and sometimes the journey is half of the fun. First you board a Gold Line train all the way to Union Station, an interesting ride, especially as it takes over Marmion Way and passes through residential areas. From Union Station, it’s not too hard to find the subway and take the first train you see to Metro Center, a station which is always a little confusing but always works out fine in the end. Metro Center is where you can also board the Expo Line, which takes you near Exposition Park and through Culver City and eventually to Santa Monica, where the pier and the Pacific are only but a few blocks away.
