The day after last night

I tried to think about what I might be able to use to write about this prompt.  I thought to myself that I wonder what kind of photo I could use with this, so I decided to let the fates decide.  I went to my Flickr account and thought it might be interesting to just post a photo of the last shot that got faved there and write a story around it.

I actually got very lucky since it could have been one of my more recent shots, but someone apparently found the shot of downtown Los Angeles in the archives and faved it today.

I enjoy going to LA, mainly because there's a lot to take photos of there.  I can take the train in from where I live and it drops me off at Union Station, right next to Olivera Street.  A couple of blocks over and I'm in Chinatown.  Three blocks the other way, I'm in Little Tokyo.  Up a couple of blocks a third way and I can then walk all the way around Walt Disney Concert Hall.  It's like you're in a time warp, where the day after last night keeps happening over and over again, you get to see different cultures and yet never really do any kind of traveling.

The other thing I enjoy about this area is it affords me to practice my street photography.  I know not everyone is comfortable taking photos of random people on the street and at times it can feel very intimidating.  But I've found that I can document life on the street in a variety of ways, not all of it nice, but all of it real.  Sometimes I post those shots in color, but most of the time, I'll post them in monotone.  For whatever reason, I feel that the monotone gives the shot a more authentic look to it, almost like something out of the past.

Street photography has its own rewards and it can present problems.  Most people don't like other people taking photos of them.  I understand that, but if no one took any photos how could we document what's happening out there?  I've tried a technique with a varying degree of success.  I'll see a shot, compose it in my mind, then walk by it with my camera in my hand upside down and fire off shots as I walk away.  With the zoom lens and the auto focus, I can sometimes get some very interesting shots that way.

Other times, I'll just take a shot, because it looks interesting.  Many people don't really notice when you're taking your shot, especially if you don't get in somebody's face about it.  That's another reason to carry a zoom lens along.  It makes for a less intimidation factor when you're in a crowd taking shots.

No matter what day I go, whether it's yesterday, tomorrow or the day after last night, I find the subject matter in the downtown area has always changed, so there's always new shots.  But at the same time, the subject matter is also constant and doesn't change.  I hope that makes sense.