Chinatown In LA

It's hard for me to believe sometimes that there are areas of Downtown Los Angeles that I haven't visited yet. But I set out to for one that I've been wanting to see for many years. I decided on checking it out after seeing an article in the AAA magazine for Orange County, Westways, and they had an article showing different spots to check out in Downtown LA. They were Little Tokyo Restaurants, Art galleries in old Chinatown Store fronts, and an old fascination of mine, Old Theaters in Downtown LA.

The window of the Metro Blue Line train I took into town.

Chinatown is the area just north of the 101 Freeway and right below Chavez Ravine (aka Dodger Stadium, the inferior LA Baseball team). Its a very unique location for sure. The area started off as Little Italy. In fact there is still a standing building smack in the middle that was one of the more popular Italian restaurants of from that era.

There is a neat little shopping center in the center that has several shops with a WIDE variety of items, cool little hole in the wall restaurants, and other decorations to make the place look authentic.

That area was probably the most interesting of the whole Chinatown section. There were some other interesting places like the store you buy poultry at. much of the popular sights such as the cool entrance on Hill has now been impeded by tall buildings.

But thats what happens in the 2nd largest city. If you see sky, there must be something wrong.

Chinatown in Downtown LA is well worth the 5 second Metro Gold Line ride from Union Station. You won't find many other places like it. The only other chinatowns that could compare or be even better are the ones in New York and San Francisco, but that's just my opinion. Check it out.

To see some of my older works as well as what I'm currently working on, check out my gallery site timeside.smugmug.com or my portfolio othersideoftime.weebly.com

Thanks for stopping by, and see y'all on my next adventures.

How Do You Fall: Downtown LA

On November 11th, I took a day trip out to Downtown LA. As usual I took my preffered route of driving down to the Metro Green Line station in Norwalk, CA and transferring over to the Blue Line train. This trip was mostly dedicated to the 11-11-11 project, but I also had wanted to eat lunch in Little Tokyo.

The order of the pictures are the timeline of my walk across the dense metropolis. I got off the Blue Line station at Pico station, Cut down 11th Ave and then walked across on Broadway.

This is still probably my most favorite place to take pictures at and seem to find something new to shoot every time. Even walking in the same places I've shot before. I think I should bring my substandard point and shoot next time to switch it up.

Where is your most favorite place that you've taken pictures at?

One last note for today, I made my very first portfolio. I have the best of the best of my shots on there. I would very much appreciate if you'd check it out (Right Here) and let me know what you think, Good or Bad. Have a great week!

11 on 11

A couple weeks ago I was given the idea to shoot eleven pictures on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I've never shot a project with parameters as strict as that. So, Here are my results. I have to be a bit honest, I went back to some places that I'd shot at before and at least one was from a similar angle. But I shot all in color this time and all of them were shot with my 5 megapixel cell phone camera. Enjoy!

In Case anybody  was wondering, the images are in a specific order. Its basically the start of my trip from the Norwalk Metro Green Line Station and ends in Little Tokyo in Downtown LA. I actually walked right down the middle, down Broadway. I've been wanting to eat down there for the last few months and I've just been so darn busy.

Let me know what you guys think!

Live blog from the road

I'm sitting here over at the Norwalk green line station and was thinking what better way to spend my day than to have a live picture blog. Here is the entrance to the station here

Updated 10:30 am
Picture 2 the road to long beach. Too bad I'm going the other way

Updated 10:45
Watts towers station off the blue line is picture #3

Updated 11:29
I decided last second to jump off the train to go shoot in one of my favorite spots. This time in color. Picture #4 LA City Hall

Updated 12:08 pm
My last shot from downtown before I hit an internet free zone in the subway. Picture #5

Updated 1:19 pm
Jumped on the gold line. It seems to be where all the nice stops are. Picture #6 del mar gold line crossing in Pasadena

Updated 1:40
I seemed to hit jackpot when I got off at del mar. Currently at memorial park in Pasadena, Picture #7

Final Update 6:45 PM

All in all, I accomplished what I set out to do for the day. I had a couple of minor detours that I had to take, but my first part of research went as planned. Next time, I don't think there will be as many distractions since I will be going in a different direction from today. Hey this was kind of fun. Maybe I will do it again, since my phone was able to handle it. I have a picture set ready to go either tomorrow or Monday. Thanks for stopping by.

Final Final Update, The Next day.

I just realized I posted the best picture of the day on to my facebook and not here. So here it is.