On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This morning was planes, this morning was trains, and now tonight we’re on to ships. Maybe this really is
Infrastructure WeekTransportation Week. ~WaterGirl
This group of pictures was taken of Los Angeles harbor 50 years ago. I’ve always enjoyed the fish and machinery smells, and the infrastructure is filled with graphic elements that yield great photos.
This first shot was one of the 10 pictures in my art school admission portfolio. The lens quality on the Pentax I used for this was not brilliant, nor was my lab technique at that point. Nevertheless, I’ve always loved the picture and have no regrets about showing it here.
This picture was an out-take which never left the darkroom prior to a whim about 10 years ago to scan the negative anyway. With Photoshop to smooth out some of the problems, I’ve come to really like it for its composition and strangeness.
This photo is another that was in my application portfolio. Same technical issues, but those don’t get in the way of the shot.
Better gear. Better lab work. Still a very long time ago.
Pure exercise in composition and texture. It doesn’t have as wide an appeal as some shots, but I’ve always liked it.
Simple compositional planes. Very typical of my early work.
The color here is a mess. Technique has been thrown out the window in an effort to emphasize the linear elements and the mood of the late afternoon sun.
Wyatt Salamanca
Love these photos! I’ve never visited Los Angeles, but hope to do so one day.
This post reminded me of a wonderful documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself that consists entirely of clips of film scenes shot in Los Angeles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifii8LvR-ss
CCL
Love these, especially the composition (and lens?) used in the 4th and 5th shots… Double especially the focus and harsher light of the 4th. Nice end to my day to see these.
Elizabelle
@Wyatt Salamanca: I love that film! I have it on DVD, and now it’s on youtube too.
@Mike: love your photos. Have spent a lot of time in San Pedro and Long Beach and love it there. Spectacular port.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Beautiful shots! I took a photography class in high school and loved doing landscape shots like these. Used black and white film and a basic SLR camera. The second HS photography class I used a digital camera, but I always enjoyed the dark room process even though it was a ton of work. We never developed the film itself but the photos
Martin
Very cool. This was just when shipping containerization really started to take off. I’m fascinated by how transformational that idea was, in terms of infrastructure, jobs, etc. There is something a bit romantic about the process of a team of guys loading or unloading a ship. It was a shitty job, but it was a job that hadn’t radically changed in a couple thousand years. Mostly the same tools – cargo hook, ropes and nets, various kinds of knots.
The Moar You Know
Fifty years. Things have changed a lot. I wonder if there’s any cargo traffic at the Port of Los Angeles, now that Long Beach has taken over most of the West Coast. I know Oakland still gets some traffic. SF hasn’t seen any for decades.
The last shot, the color one, definitely captures the early evening Southern California colors and sky that I’ve known most of my life, save for my time in NorCal
ETA: did some Google. Apparently San Pedro/LA is all the same thing, now. #1 in cargo traffic.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: Containers. The first packet-switched network.
frosty
I was fortunate enough to do stormwater consulting work for the Port of Baltimore for the last few years. I always loved the site visits and the ambiance. Which is different now, being mostly RO-RO (roll on roll off vehicle carriers) and containers. Still, it’s a different world.
All my Port clients told me to watch Season 2 of the Wire, that was set in Baltimore Harbor. It’s still on my binge list.
Searcher
I do like that first one.
On a podcast I listened to, one guy was telling a story about looking at a bunch of photos his brother took while taking a photography class, he pulled one out and was like “this one looks really good”, to which his brother said, “I didn’t take that one, that one was an example by a professional photographer”.
That one kind of jumps out like that.
Martin
@The Moar You Know: There’s not much point separating them, TBH. They grew into one.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Who is Mike?
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Sorry. Steve.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thanks but that’s OK. I have faith Steve in Mendocino (aka Mike, to me!) will figure it out.
These photos were taken maybe 2 to 3 miles from where some of the new Perry Mason on HBO were filmed.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, I know when I heard Angel Flight this morning I thought of Perry Mason. Small world.
Mary G
Wonderful eye, all these are so evocative, thank you.
Mike in NC
While living in CA there wasn’t the chance for me to see San Pedro, where apparently much of the navy was based before being moved to Pearl Harbor.
tokyokie
Do you miss futzing with film in the dark room? I had to take a news photography class back in journalism school, and I learned how to run film and work an enlarger, and I really enjoyed it. Although I must say I was a lot better working the enlarger than running film. I gave up photography when I realized I was at a point at which I’d need to buy a lot of expensive equipment. (When you figure out that to go further you’ll have to convert a bathroom into a dark room, you have to make a choice.) Somehow, digital photography doesn’t seem as interesting.
frosty
@tokyokie: I worked in a darkroom in at least one of my shop classes, and working with a photographer friend in college. You’re right that digital isn’t quite the same as seeing the picture of Linda Ronstadt you took from the front row take form in the pan of developer. B/W of course, I never graduated to color.
OzarkHillbilly
Good stuff.
There go two miscreants
Nice pix. These remind me very much of the Bodine pictures of Baltimore and its harbor and industrial environs.
Also, there is an excellent book about the development of container shipping: The Box.
Steve from Mendocino
@tokyokie: The dark room was the best part of all of that, but I don’t miss it. Photoshop is so much more powerful, and it works on color. I found color to be constricting in that way. In black and white, on top of dodging and burning, you could heat up local areas to increase development and contrast, you could change contrast filters to increase local contrast, and you could bleach a light area with potassium ferricyanide. In addition, color film was much less forgiving of color and contrast challenges in the original shoot. Today’s digital is infinitely easier to work with.