L.A. on a Sunday night

The theme for this year's fair is "County Days & City Nights". The girls and I plan to enter photos in the fair again this year. They do not require them to be in the theme, but there are additional awards for entries that are in the theme. The "country days" half I have plenty of pictures of... but "city nights" are pretty sleepy around here. It is a joke around here that downtown shuts down at 9pm, but it is 99% true. So, while in Los Angeles recently, I took the opportunity to borrow my dad's tripod and do some long-exposure night images.

I knew I wanted a picture of downtown. I also wanted an iconic piece of architecture. The best place to do both of those at the same time is Griffith Observatory. We got there, found a great view, got the tripod and camera ll ready, and were told by a security guard that we cannot have a tripod. We can use it as a monopod. Hmm... ok... it is not exactly stable that way so I leaned it against a low wall and crossed my fingers.



I was so amazed it actually came out clear with this 25 second exposure. We moved away from the main observatory and were able to use the tripod again.



On the way home, we stopped to try getting a shot of one of the freeways. The trick was working around the chain-link fence on every freeway overpass. I managed to get the camera close enough you can't see the fence but I was not able to get rid of the light artifacts.



I really need to get a tripod... I had too much fun taking these pictures.