Busy Life. Beautiful Lights.

When I first set out to do this assignment, I immediately thought about taking a picture at the "Public Art, Urban Light" display. While it seemed like such an obvious idea, I was nonetheless set on capturing beautiful, warm, romantic lights that I remembered from the first time I saw the display. I first saw the display in the movie, "No Strings Attached." The scene in the movie that featured the display was fun and romantic and everything that I had only dreamt of having at the time. Since then I've always wanted to visit the display, all the while not knowing it was here in Los Angeles until I had accidentally past it while driving one day. So when I was given this assignment, I thought that this would be the perfect excuse to go and see it. And while I'm at it, I might as well make a date out of it. So my boyfriend and I set out to go see it.

However, while on the drive trying to find it, I kept thinking about how the display was such an obvious easy choice for this assignment and how I would much rather post something more interesting and multi-dimensional. I wanted something with lighting layers and thankfully, we stumbled upon the building on the left side of the picture along the way.

This building was just two blocks down from the lighting display I was so determined to see. The Petersen Automotive museum, in combination with the street lights and the natural light coming from the sky as the sun was setting provided the perfect picture for me to take. Sitting on Wilshire and Fairfax, this building that is so uniquely and artistically built, combining both structural and lighting arts, is called, "The Petersen Automotive Museum." Who knew that something so different, so creative would be a museum for old cars?

In combination with this building's surroundings, this was just really easy to appreciate the different layers of light jumping out at every glance. From the different kinds of lights radiating from different areas of the street such as the lamp posts and stop lights to the car headlights to the sky, each had their own place and amount of radiance to help create this picture. The car headlights provided yellow and white lighting beams that signal a busy city street within the storm that is city life. The lamp posts signaled that it was nearing the beginning of its nightly routine of lighting the walkways for countless pedestrians and tourists alike, coming to see the various attractions such as the automotive museum and the Urban Light display. The green stop light signaled that it's time for various motorists to continue on their same mundane path that they always take, always too busy to the time to appreciate the beauty around them (I, myself am guilty of this too). The red lights coming from the building boldly asserts itself on the street as not just housing for the treasures inside, but as an irreplaceable piece of art within itself, that demands to be appreciated as well. Lastly, the sky, that ranges from a light orange to a beautiful, calming shade of blue. The sky that is silently showing a city that is always on the move that it is time to slow down.

This assignment was really fun to do and the journey I went on to take this picture and the beauty that  I, for once, was able to stop and appreciate within the busy city life, was a great experience to have. For me, this picture will always be the artistic calm in the eye of the busy storm.