Every time I go to a city center, I feel at home in the chaos and endless possibilities. Walkability and culture. Maybe it isn’t time for the East Coast. Downtown Los Angeles has so much potential for street photography. It’s a grimy and rough place. For these reasons, it’s not well documented. There’s a few dedicated people shooting DTLA but I can add to the conversation.

Study your own photography, not the masters.

The masters won’t help you tweak your style.

Take the above photo for example. I like the bubble exploding against the crushed blacks. This is just an okay photo, but next time I’ll know to simplify the scene. I’d like to have less background clutter which can easily be done by pointing my camera to the right. I also want to be closer to the explosion. There is a lot of potential here.

So how can looking at a photo book improve this? I don’t think it can. Only we know the strengths and weaknesses of our photos and only we know the specifics of any neighborhood we frequent. This is the power we possess. Recognizing patterns and improving the scene through this recognition. Some things are in our control.

On a HC black and white jpeg in some good lighting. What looks better?

Ideally it’s non photographers. People who have no clue what street photography is. I have zero desire for my photos to be judged by other photographers. To submit my work for review to my contemporaries. I don’t care about their opinions. A carpenter, teacher or burger flipper is my audience.

Perfect place to practice street photography. Anyone I’ve shot with here says the same thing. The beach is hard to shoot at. I think it’s the lack of interesting light bouncing off tall buildings, everything is wide open. Compositions are more difficult. Backgrounds are messy. A lot of the time there’s isn’t much going on. It’s a bit sleepy. It’s the 102nd most dense neighborhood in LA county. But there’s enough action to train yourself. Especially on weekends. So if one can manage to make good work here, I suppose it’s one step closer to mastery.

Not really. I’m pretty emotionally detached. I shoot so much that my keepers are quickly forgotten until I scroll through the archive.