The quality of images available on Google Streetview has reached the point that site visits become less necessary. The one drawback though is that Streetview images are only taken from the street and the right of ways we want to document aren’t always visible. I ended up with a spare day on a recent trip to California and decided it was worth the effort to drive to LA to fill in some gaps in my image library. Clearly the decades long effort at smog reduction has worked as I was rewarded with a day of brilliant sunshine and deep blue skies. Such lighting is a double edged sword. You get deep, vibrant colors in images where the sun is to your back and images with washed out sun flare when you need to shoot photos facing the south (which I did). Vernon, CA makes no apologies for being what it is, an industry only enclave. The section I was interested in still had a lot of architectural charm (o.k. interesting to us, probably not to our spouses and the rest of the world!) while at the same time was clean and safe. I was approached by a friendly plant foreman that was nice enough to provide a little supplemental info. on operations. Offspots are prevalent. The LAJ switches this section in the late afternoon.
Perfect lighting! Notice how light the rail is here.
4722 S. Everett Avenue. This is a view I wanted that wasn’t available in Streetview.
The meat distributor would make for an interesting modeling subject. The oddly shaped arched roofs are a common architectural feature of this area. Federal Cold Storage is in the background.