Los Angeles Spaceport

“Los Angeles spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”

No prizes for guessing this is slightly rewritten but from Star Wars. Alec Guiness as Ben Obi-wan Kenobi is actually talking about Mos Eisley spaceport of course, but every image of LA at night shot from Griffith Observatory always reminds me of Mos Eisley spaceport. A few days ago I had the opportunity to experience and photograph Los Angeles Spaceport myself and this is the result, a 11 image stitched panorama:

Blog - LA spaceport

Los Angeles is not known for the air quality and as you can see it is extremely hazy and smoggy, the haze picking up all the orange light and last remaining bit of sunlight. Unfortunately it also really blurs the city, evident in the original image.

It is somewhat fun to experience Los Angeles for a few days. Almost every street name, every location reminds you of a movie or TV show, especially at night where I felt like I was walking around in a Michael Mann movie (Heat being one of my favourite movies). I am no fan of LA, not surprisingly as I really don’t like any big cities. Hollywood Boulevard is, not surprising at all, touristy around the Kodak Theatre area but it is surprisingly trashy. Not glamourous at all. The view of LA from Griffith IS impressive, like a planet of light. The amount of energy that goes into lighting up this place is hard to ignore though as I stand at Griffith looking out at this planet of a city. Well, if only a few spaceships would land then the energy would be well spent. I am on the road now and happy to have left LA. Oh while we are on the subject of Star Wars, driving out of LA on the walled 6 lane mega highways reminded me of flying in the trenches of the Death Star.

6 Comments on “Los Angeles Spaceport”

  1. I just turned down a job offer to move to LA from Miami for the same reasons! You will enjoy the US SW though. Tucson, Flagstaff, and Santa Fe sound like places you may like. Phoenix is big and sprawling but nicer than LA. If you do go to southern Arizona try going out to Organ Pipe National Park. It is on US/Mex border and really gets you into no where SW but the park is great for hiking and photography – landscape and the organ pipe cacti. There are so many places to go to photograph in the SW you can spend easily a years there if not longer!

    1. Thanks so much for the good suggestions Dan. I am travelling without much of a plan, so all ideas welcome. Organ Pipe NP sounds good, and I do plan for AZ and New Mexico after Palm Springs.

  2. luckily you weren't traveling with droids wanted by the empire. Especially one carrying the technical readouts of the death star. You want to avoid any imperial entanglements!

    Ah you gotta love it don't ya, and love the pic too. I never went out at night in LA for fear of being killed! Well actually we went out once to a veggie restaurant. I ordered chips and got corn chips. I wanted Fries!!!

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