While exploring downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo at night, I needed a fravor.
"Fravors". Photo: Reinhard Kargl, 2010. Click to enlarge.
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
I must confess that I like old cemeteries. I don’t perceive them as eerie, but as peaceful and tranquil. To those with open minds and eyes, cemeteries offer a glimpse into the lives of people who have long gone.
Here is a picture I took in a Southern California graveyard. Mrs. Death passed away 98 years ago, at the age of 81. Who was she? And how did she get that name? Surely, introductions at social gatherings would have resulted in some comical consternation.
I assume that Mrs. Death must have possessed a sense of humor — otherwise she would have changed her name at some point. (Quite easily accomplished in America, name changes are a time honored tradition among immigrants).
Peace be upon her.
R.I.P., Mrs. Death. Photo: Reinhard Kargl, 2010. Click to enlarge.
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
A post office I know in West Los Angeles has more security cameras than postal workers. (The cameras are monitoring the long line of waiting customers, but not the postal workers who usually move slower than sloths. Then again, since the price of postage keeps rising by the month, they must guard against the distinct possibility of armed stamp robberies).
These days, surveillance cameras are watching us in the most bizarre of places. Here is a picture I took at the entrance to a Buddhist temple.
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
So far, this year’s summer has been rather chilly and cloudy in Southern California. I can only dream of cold cocktails on hot summer nights.
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
Something I love about the Los Angeles area is that despite all its insane sprawl, it still offers the possibility of escape from the urban mess; to seek moments of refuge and relative solitude in the wilderness of the mountain chains surrounding the basin.
These pictures were taken on a night hike last weekend. (Click to enlarge).
Venus is hanging low in the east as the Sun is setting over the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Photo: Reinhard Kargl
Seen from Parker Mesa Overlook in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Moon has risen over West Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Bay. Photo: Reinhard Kargl
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
I have no idea why this old pick-up truck was parked on a Westside school campus at night. It was completely covered with rust and looked a little eerie in greenish light — as if it had appeared right out of the past.
Mystery Truck. Photo: Reinhard Kargl, 2010. (Added vignette and adjusted tint, exposure and sharpness digitally). Click to enlarge.
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
Trekking up and down the East Fork of the San Gabriel River last weekend, through intense heat and about 20 wildwater crossings, we found the mysterious Bridge to Nowhere.
Bridge to Nowhere. Sheep Mountain Wilderness, California. 34°16′59″N 117°44′48″W. Click to enlarge. Photo: Reinhard Kargl, 2010
Why is there a bridge in the middle of the wilderness?
I was wondering too.
Built in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1936, the 120 ft (27 m) high bridge was supposed to be part of a road connecting the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County with Wrightwood in San Bernardino County. But the road was never completed.
After being overcome by a flood in March of 1938, the road construction project was abandoned.
The bridge remains, leading nowhere. It is accessible only on foot.
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
"Beast of Burden", Reinhard Kargl 2007. Click to enlarge.
One late afternoon, I observed this scene in a supermarket parking lot. The dog’s owner, a retired college professor was shopping in the store while his canine pillion rider was guarding their vintage BMW motorcycle. (The two of them routinely ride together).
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
Los Angeles Theater. Photo: Reinhard Kargl, 2010
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.
Here is a shot I captured during a cocktail hour at Musso & Frank, one of Hollywood’s legendary old joints. In its heyday it was a popular hangout for the Hollywood scene, including movie stars, film directors, producers and writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Raymond Chandler. Ernest Hemingway sipped cocktails here, and Orson Welles used to hold court.
Legend has it that Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, and Douglas Fairbanks raced each other down Hollywood Boulevard on horseback, the loser having to pick up the dinner tab at Musso & Frank.
This shot takes me to L.A. Noir. Perhaps this is Philip Marlowe‘s hat …
"Marlowe's Hat" • Photo: Reinhard Kargl
Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.