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Light Writing on the LA 405 Freeway

Randy Grosse

Blog #7 of 12

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October 22nd, 2014 - 04:08 PM

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Light Writing on the LA 405 Freeway

What do you get when you are stuck in stop and go traffic—6 lanes wide each way—during a typical rush hour on the Los Angeles 405 Freeway?

If you are the driver, you get a stress-induced headache. For passengers, it’s a boredom-induced coma. This is especially true at night when the only scenery is a blur of headlights and taillights.

That is unless you’re a photographer stuck in that passenger seat. Especially if you happen to have a camera in your lap when curiosity strikes.

What would happen if you stuck that camera out the passenger side window and started taking pictures?

The car you’re in accelerates from a dead stop to 60, 70, 75 miles per hour, and then instantly back to a crawl—only to accelerate again. All the while, there are cars within an arm’s length in all directions.

There are cars everywhere. Cars packed like sardines 6-lanes wide in each direction. Cars packed onto on ramps, off ramps, and overpasses—all lit by streaming headlights and taillights.

And there I was, arm stuck out the window, camera in hand. Step one: take a picture, step two: review and evaluate, step three: change camera settings, step four: repeat step one.

After some experimenting with a variety of camera settings amazing things started to happen. What my eyes saw as a sea of car lights flowing in all directions, the camera began to record as an amazing light show. No image the same, but each exposure feeding an all-consuming desire to do it again.

And so it went, arm out the window again and again. It only came to an end when we exited the LA 405.

The results? For me the images that I call Light Writing on the LA 405 are magical. I find the dizzying array of colors, patterns, shapes and textures visually exciting. I also think they have a very modern look and feel that would enhance any environment where they are displayed.

I hope you enjoy Light Writing on the 405. I hope to create more of this style imagery. Hope is the key word here. I truly believe magic happened the night I was lucky enough to capture Light Writing on the LA 405. So many things could have gone wrong; yet everything went right. A camera, a photographer, a set of circumstances that may never intersect again.

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All the best,

Randy Grosse

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