Los Angeles photoshoot ideas: a by-neighborhood reference

01Hollywood and the Sign

The Hollywood Sign sits at 1,578 feet on Mount Lee, originally erected in 1923 as Hollywoodland and shortened in 1978. Beachwood Canyon residents have lobbied the City of LA repeatedly since 2017 over visitor traffic, and the Hollyridge Trail has been gated since 2018 following resident complaints documented in LA Times reporting.

Lake Hollywood Park, on Canyon Lake Drive, gives the cleanest direct frontal composition. Free, open dawn to dusk, no permit for handheld photography. Griffith Observatory, on Mount Hollywood at 1,134 feet, gives the lateral composition with the sign on the left and the LA Basin sprawling below. The 30 minutes before sunset on the east-facing terrace is photographed continuously. Innsdale Drive in Beachwood Canyon gives a tighter composition but parking is restricted to residents 8am to 8pm.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame, with over 2,700 brass-and-terrazzo stars between Gower and La Brea, photographs cleanest before 8am. The TCL Chinese Theatre forecourt, with its 200-plus celebrity hand and footprints since 1927, is the canonical shoot.

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02Venice, Santa Monica, the coast

Venice was developed in 1905 by Abbot Kinney; the remaining six blocks of canals between Washington and Venice Boulevards were restored in 1992. The working composition is from the Carroll Canal pedestrian bridge looking south, late afternoon. Venice Boardwalk runs 2.5 miles from Marina del Rey to Santa Monica; the working stretch is between Windward and North Venice Boulevard, where the Botticelli mural, the Endangered Species mural, and the courts at Venice Beach Recreation Center give a continuous sequence. Abbot Kinney Boulevard, named GQ's Coolest Block in America in 2012, gives a strong walking composition between 4pm and sunset.

Santa Monica Pier was built 1909 and Pacific Park added 1996. The cleanest angle is from the beach 200 feet south of the pier at low tide. Palisades Park on Ocean Avenue runs along the bluffs above. The Camera Obscura at Ocean and Broadway has been operating since 1898.

Malibu's coastline runs 21 miles. El Matador State Beach, at 32350 PCH, gives the sea-stack-and-arch composition Vogue and Sports Illustrated have shot since the 1970s. Tide tables published by NOAA Station 9410840 determine when the arches are accessible at the cliff base. The working window is one to two hours before low tide at sunset.

03Downtown LA

Downtown LA holds the densest concentration of named architectural locations in greater LA. The Bradbury Building at 304 South Broadway, completed in 1893 by George Wyman, has the wrought-iron interior atrium that Blade Runner shot in 1982. The atrium is open to the public free of charge from 9am to 5pm; tripods and commercial work require a permit through building management. Walt Disney Concert Hall, completed by Frank Gehry in 2003 at 111 South Grand, gives the polished stainless-steel exterior; the working angle is from the top of the Grand Avenue stairs looking up at the curved south wall during late-morning sun.

Grand Central Market, in operation continuously since 1917 at 317 South Broadway, gives the longest interior food-stall composition in the city. Union Station, completed in 1939, is the last of the great American passenger train stations and gives a Mission Revival exterior plus an Art Deco interior; tripods require a permit through Metro.

The Arts District, roughly bounded by Alameda, Sixth, the LA River, and First, gives a continuous mural and warehouse register. The most-photographed murals are at Hauser and Wirth's Bond Street facade, the Container Yard at Hewitt Street, and the rotating murals at Pickle Works. Ed Ruscha's 1966 book Every Building on the Sunset Strip, his deadpan accordion-fold survey of one street in West Hollywood, was the foundational work for treating LA as a photographic subject.

The Last Bookstore, at 453 South Spring on the ground floor of the former Crocker National Bank building, is California's largest used and new bookstore at 22,000 square feet, and the second-floor labyrinth and book tunnel give an interior composition that no other LA bookstore reproduces.

04Griffith Park, the eastside, Beverly Hills

Griffith Park covers 4,310 acres and is the second-largest urban park in California. Griffith Observatory, opened 1935 with its Art Deco copper dome, gives the canonical Hollywood Sign composition from the east terrace and the canonical LA Basin composition from the west terrace. Parking fills by 4pm weekends. The Bronson Caves on the western flank, where the original Batman TV series and dozens of Westerns shot, give a composition location photographers use as a desert stand-in inside city limits.

Echo Park Lake, restored 2013, holds the city's only urban lotus bloom every July; the Lotus Festival has been held annually since 1972. The Music Box Steps on Vendome Street, where Laurel and Hardy shot the 1932 piano-pushing short, give another eastside composition. Watts Towers, the seventeen interconnected steel-and-mortar sculptures Simon Rodia built between 1921 and 1954 at 1727 East 107th Street, are a National Historic Landmark.

Rodeo Drive between Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevard runs three blocks of luxury retail centered on the curved Two Rodeo cobblestone walk, opened 1990. The Beverly Hills Hotel at 9641 Sunset, opened 1912, photographs cleanest from the porte-cochere. The Getty Center at 1200 Getty Center Drive, the Richard Meier-designed travertine campus opened 1997, gives a contemporary architectural composition with the LA Basin spreading below.

05The drive-out backcountry

The basin's edge is where the working composition stops being LA and becomes the desert.

Vasquez Rocks Natural Area in Agua Dulce, 50 miles north of Downtown via the 14, holds the named sandstone formations Star Trek used continuously across the original series and Westworld used in the 2016 reboot. The 932-acre County of Los Angeles park gives a Mars-on-earth composition; entry is free, parking is free, the LA County Parks commercial filming permit runs $750 per day.

Joshua Tree National Park, 130 miles east via the 10, gives the Mojave-and-Colorado-desert composition with the Joshua trees themselves as the canopy. NPS commercial filming permits run $150 per day plus $1 million in liability; the Cholla Cactus Garden, Skull Rock, and the Hidden Valley loop are the working compositions.

Salvation Mountain in Niland, 180 miles southeast via the 10 and the 111, is the painted concrete folk-art mountain Leonard Knight built between 1985 and 2014. Niland is roughly three hours from Downtown LA; the mountain is free to visit, donations accepted, and there is no permit office, only volunteer caretakers from the Salvation Mountain Inc. nonprofit.

06Permits and the brief

FilmLA administers commercial photography permits in the City of LA, the unincorporated County, and several contracted cities. The base permit is $660 plus insurance ($1 million general liability, naming the City of LA and FilmLA as additional insured) and processing in 4 to 6 business days. Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Long Beach administer their own permits separately. NPS properties (Joshua Tree, Santa Monica Mountains NRA, the Channel Islands) require an NPS permit at $150 per day. State park properties (El Matador, Point Dume, Leo Carrillo, Topanga) require a California State Parks permit at $150 per day plus the same insurance.

Venice and Santa Monica reward beach-tonal palettes: sand, terracotta, faded denim, ivory linen. The Pacific blue is the dominant background colour; warm tones cut through. Hollywood and Beverly Hills reward dressier silhouettes. Downtown reads strongest in editorial-leaning monochrome. Malibu reads in coastal neutrals with one accent against the gray rock and blue ocean. The desert drive-outs reward earth tones, rust and ochre, against the granite and painted concrete.

Catherine Opie said you read LA by driving. Name two or three neighborhoods, name the drive between them, and treat the freeway as part of the production.

For related destination references see the new york photoshoot ideas spoke, the san francisco photoshoot ideas spoke, and the miami photoshoot ideas spoke.

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