Best of L.A. 2005: Encounters

My images of the L.A./L.B. harbors show what I treasure most about my neighborhood. I live five minutes from both harbors, and the drive to my studio at Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, takes me over two bridges, sometimes three. The studio, a former U.S. Army barracks, sits on top of a view of the harbor, from L.A. all the way to Huntington Beach. The harbor’s monumentalism is hard to ignore. Most of its occupations, from bridge work in the air to hard-hat diving underneath the water, lend themselves to the harbor’s scale. As a retired carpenter once remarked in a conversation, the harder the work, the prouder the men. That is what I love, the monumentalism and its accompanying attitudes.