LA River

In one of my extended visits to my brother in Los Angeles, I could not help but notice the irony of the LA river which winds its way through the city to finally empty out into the ocean.  This dirty flow of water is encased in concrete and the homeless usually find a quiet place to sleep along it’s banks.  Water is usually something to be celebrated and surrounded by high priced restaurants, decorated with parks and where people pay extra for a “waterfront view”.  I felt a little sorry for this neglected waterway so I sought out to photograph its hidden beauty.  

At night, many details are hidden in shadow and can not be seen with the naked eye.  A good time exposure can bring these things to view but then of course you may end up blowing out the highlights.  This is when it is a good time to use HDR technology.  With a tripod, I took 5 different time exposures ranging roughly from 1 second to 10.  I sandwiched them using the HDR program in Photoshop.  It was amazing to see all of the details emerge.  I manipulated the color temperature to the cold end of the scale to bring out a feeling of industrialization.  

The most difficult part of this endeavour was trying not to get caught while trespassing and not getting mugged! I did get caught but luckily the security man was a photo enthusiast and he let me go with a warning.  This is one photo of a series of 12 images of the LA river.


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