How Did That Get In LA? The Culver City Scenic Outlook

Over the holiday break, Dan and I decided it was time to stop lounging around so much and enjoy the sunny, warm weather we had.

We decided to go on a hike and I mentioned how I wanted to check out the hill in Culver City that we can see on our neighborhood walk.

I looked on a map and figured out it was most likely Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area that we were seeing and decided to see what the little spot of nature was doing in the middle of Los Angeles, well off to the side at least.

So, we set off on our adventure.

The Getty Museum

We finally went! Dan took Friday off for his birthday and we decided to head up to the Getty Museum for the day.

Getty from the gardens.

What an amazing place. The architecture is breathtaking and is easily the best part of the entire trip. From my photographer's point of view, this place is the best! I probably snapped a million pictures of the architecture while we were there. The garden is also an experience on it's own.

Textures.

Getty's contrast with the sky.

The whole place was thought out extensively and built on two intersecting axis of Los Angeles. The walls and ground are all in a grid and cut to size in multiples of three. The masonry is very original. I don't remember the type of stone that was used, but it is from Italy and is very old. The way they cut it was done so in a way that gave each piece an individual look and feel. The rock was so old that you could often seen fossils of leaves and supposedly fish (I couldn't find any).

The architect was Richard Meier, who is well known for his love of the colour white. He believes that white embodies all colours. The funny, and perhaps ironic, thing is that one of the stipulations of designing the Getty Center was that it could not be white. Well, of course Richard Meier found away around this, by making the buildings off-white.

Close enough, right?

He did something very clever with the shades of colour when designing the center. There are areas for guests and areas for the foundation and art preservation. He used solid whites to draw people to certain areas. For instance, on the main entrance to the museum he outlined it with white, same as the tram station. Whereas, for the entrances of privates areas he did not use white. I love it.

The exhibits were interesting as well. Of course my favourite was the medieval scriptures they have. The fact that these books were handwritten and the artwork painted with expensive colours is pure craziness. If you understand the colour thing, you must be a historian!

Los Angeles

We wandered around the grounds and took both the garden tour and architectural tour, both of which I recommend. We enjoyed the views of LA and even got a good lunch. They had vegan Korean noodle salad, yes please!

The flowers naturally enhance the architecture. 

Anyway, if you live or are ever in the Los Angeles area, I highly recommend going to the Getty Center, not to be confused with the Getty Villa. We'll save that for another time. :)

Happy Earth Week!

In honour of Earth Day this week, many people including yours truly, like to extend Earth Day into Earth Week. Here are some photo's I've taken over the years of our beautiful Mother Nature.

Berlin, Deutschland

Davey Havok's "Pop Kids" Book Signing

So a co-worker/friend of Dan and me offered to let him interview and me photograph Davey for the book signing of his first published novel, Pop Kids. Being an avid AFI fan, Dan was really excited to interview Davey. I'm not a huge punk music lover, but I love Davey because... drum roll.. he's a hardcore vegan!!

Flashback Story: Dan actually ran into him and a band-mate after a Gilman show back in the day and asked if he and his friend could tag along while they went on a hunt for ice cream. Davey said sure, probably thought it was cute some kid wanted to hang out with him. Anyway, they were looking at ice cream and Dan kept saying, "just get that one." To which Davey replied somewhere along the lines of, "I can't! It's not vegan!" Which confused the heck out of Dan. Little did he know, ten or so years later he would be marrying a vegan.