“Trifecta”

“Smoke shop”

“Ladder”

“Curious boys”

“Bike your walk”

I love the sunsets here in Santa Monica and I don’t get out as often as I wish to shoot in that glorious light.  During the summer it’s a bit easier since sunset comes just late enough that I can make it out in time after work, but this time of year I’m lucky if I catch it during the week at all.  Tonight would have been one of the most dramatic sunsets to shoot for a long, long time.  It’s been cloudy here and our typical blue skies have been cloaked in enormous, cotton-ball, storm clouds; dark and grey and foreboding.  I wish I could have taken a couple cameras down to the boardwalk and shot for an hour.  Right at the horizon there was a strip of blue that turned purple then pink then red and yellow and orange all at the same time.   The rest of the sky was a thick fluffy blanket, slowly rippling through the dusk like someone was making your bed with you still in it.  It was glorious and I hope that tomorrow will be just as cloudy and that maybe, oh maybe I can sneak out of work a bit early and shoot. 

I might even shoot some color.  It’s interesting but lately I feel myself being drawn to color… I fault Gruyaert and Webb and their beautiful books for distracting me from my beloved monochrome images.  In fact I just got a new two volume monograph from Gruyaert (signed !!!) called “West, East.” Or is it “East, West?” Regardless it’s gorgeous.  It’s not the “Suffering of Light” but it’s incredible.  Speaking of “Suffering of Light,” I was pouring over it for a couple hours one night last week and I think it warped my brain.  I went out the next day and bought a shit-ton of Portra 400/800 like a man possessed.  

That’s how much it effects me.  Plan is to head down to K-Town, park and walk towards DTLA on Wilshire or maybe Beverly while shooting the shit out of everything.  There are all of these incredible swaths of color down that way.  I always these gorgeous red walls with blue trim at carwashes or green markets with yellow doors and patrons coming and going and always while just driving around.  In the end I just want to hop out of my car and shoot.  In fact I did that more than once this weekend.  Stopped at a red light, I see something that will make a beautiful color image, jump out, shoot, almost get run over… 

All that color nonsense aside, I’ve decided to post a small series of monochrome images that I made at sunset on the beach.  These were from sunnier days where the shadows ran long and low for days.  They work better as a series than singles and it’s just as well–I fear they might have hit the cutting room floor had they not.  All of the images were made in Santa Monica or Venice except for “Curious boys” which I made in Laguna.

All were made using my Leica M7/35mm Summicron on Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 800 at the Icon.