The call went out a couple Sundays ago for a photo meet-up in Hollywood. The JLOP, a rag-tag bunch of people I know with cameras who sometimes like to use them, seemed a little worn down. Only four of us (not counting Chula the Dog, who didn’t have a camera) met on the corner of Hollywood and Vine for a little walking, a little talking, and maybe some shutter-snapping.
We’d been down this road before (quite literally). Of all the places JLOP has gathered, Hollywood has been the most prominent. But this night was different. Hollywood was dead. There were very few souls strolling down the boulevard. The clubs along Cahuenga, where we’d taken so many pictures on so many nights of people making the scene, were empty.
I’d opted to travel light, taking only my pocket camera rather than the larger SLRs I usually use. The advantage of the Canon Powershot G15 is that it has higher ISO settings, fancy photography-speak meaning that I can get exposures in most places without a flash. But the issue that night wasn’t the flash. It was more about not having much to shoot.
So I resorted to trying different angles on some of the landmarks I’d photographed many times before—the Capitol Records building, door locks, and signs. This isn’t exactly an inspiring portfolio.
My daughter Rebecca spotted what may have been the best shot of the night—a mostly-emtpy tequila bottle atop the traffic-signal electronics box. If we moved into an exact position, maybe we could get the street sign in the background.