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You ever have trouble finding the right light in which to photograph something?

Yeah. I'm sure everyone's as anal about it as you are.

Ignore him.

I found the light I was looking for, and I was beginning to shoot pictures…



Then, someone wanted a ride, and I had to leave. I made the photos above outside the car wash.

And, as long as have nothing important to say, I'll share some more of Spring with you.



And, while I'm at it, I got a real good shot, later in the day, of something I had seen many, many times, but, was never in a good spot to take a picture.



Now, there's a story behind this. Here's the story, in someone else's words:

"Why do so many Los Angeles-area banks have amazing murals, mosaics, and sculptures? It's mostly the the work of the Millard Sheets Studio, which starting in the fifties designed more than 100 Home Savings bank buildings and their accompanying artwork. Howard Ahmanson Sr. bought Home Savings and Loan in 1947 and the bank prospered by making home loans to SoCal residents during the mid-century boom, according to historian Adam Arenson's blog on the banks. Sheets was an artist who became well-known in the thirties for his paintings. In 1952, according to the Daily News, Ahmanson wrote to Sheets: "Have traveled Wilshire Boulevard for twenty-five years. Know name of architect and year every building was built. Bored … Need buildings designed?I want buildings that will be exciting seventy-five years from now."

Ahmanson and Sheets's first bank collaboration was the Wilshire Home Savings in Beverly Hills (their first building together was the National American Insurance building on Wilshire, near Western, now the Ahmanson Center). Ahmanson gave Sheets plenty of latitude to create "banks clad in travertine and trimmed in gold, adorned with mosaic, murals and stained glass, and sculptures that lauded family life and the history of the Golden State." (Ahmanson loved them, according to a Smithsonian interview with Sheets.) Sheets designed 40 banks before Ahmanson died in 1968; he designed 80 afterward.

In 1998, Home Savings sold to Washington Mutual, which collapsed in 2008. Its banks were acquired by Chase."

Yeah. That's a tile mosaic. They're all over the place, in California. I have photos of many of them. This one is, now, a shoe store.

This pen, by the bye, is made of Ziricote. I'd mad a couple others with this wood - #s 7 and 14, think. I haven't really much cared for this wood, because it kinda looks like charcoal. However, this one sorta catches my eyes differently. I don't know. Maybe I'll grown accustomed to it. Maybe it'll grow on me.

Thank you. And I apologize.

Gallery

Comments

· Registered
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190 Posts
Another great pen, amazingly creative use of backgrounds, and thanks for the history lesson - it is nice that the community had such forward thinking people back then. Wish it could have been like that here but most of the local architecture from that era is of the cookie cutter "build it fast but build it to last" type (sturdy but not distinctive).

Thanks for sharing,

John
 

· Registered
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4,567 Posts
Another nice pen, Mark!!

Jim
 

· Registered
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6,953 Posts
Thanks for the wonderful tour, Mark!

Nice pen, too.
 

· Banned
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18,919 Posts
very nice pen buddy,i see your still counting them,well after another hundred or so you wont bother anymore-lol.
ya know ive lived in l.a. my whole life but you keep showing me stuff i never knew about or payed atttention too,thanks for the eye openers.
 

· Registered
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949 Posts
Nice pen Mark! Is that St Augustine turf?
 

· Registered
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955 Posts
Thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Larry: Not yet. Open your eyes, man. The L.A. Basin a wonderful place. Get a load of this: Over the past two weeks, I've been dragged out of the Basin, twice - Pinion Hills (look it up, I didn't know, either), and Twenty-nine Palms. You shoulda seen the wildflowers and Joshua Trees in bloom out there. That hillside above was, I think, in Covina.

I don't know. Probably.
 

· Registered
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122 Posts
Nice pen…I see grass is ready to mow…
 

· In Loving Memory
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10,409 Posts
Keep em coming mate.
 

· Banned
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5,339 Posts
simply a very beautiful pen GR8 story also GREAT JOB :<))) GRATZ TOP 3
 
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