THE PHOTOGRAPHS BEGIN WITH THE LIGHT
George Haas
On days when the light is good (I favor a lot of bright sun, clear, low
haze), and when I have time, I drive with the intention of making a
photograph. The direction I travel depends on the time of day. If I
want light over the whole landscape and it’s morning, I drive west.
North or south give me what I call “half-light,” the surfaces facing east
are lit, and the surfaces facing west are in shadow; the reverse is true
in the afternoon. I’ll shoot any time of the day. I’ve found restricting
myself to dawn or dusk, to the “magic hours,” produced images that
did not remind me of the Los Angeles I live. Driving against the light
with its high contrast and distinct forms, though often compelling in
the mind, usually fails to translate into a photograph. The shadow
areas go flat, muddy, and the highlights block up. The capacity of the
mind to select aspects of the world, make adjustments, and then
combine them into an image of the world, still bests any photographic
process I’ve found.
It is an aimless sort of driving around Los Angeles. I let my eye lead,
turning to what attracts, hoping a set of elements will catch my eye,
fascinate. I keep a list, in my mind, of the elements I work with: trees,
of course, streetlights, telephone poles, wires, blur.
The elements come from the work, a kind of distillation. Something
“works” in a photograph, the lines of electrical wires, say, or the
texture of a telephone pole; I’ll look for that something out in the world
to include in the next photograph. In shooting it, some other element I
like may come into play, and I’ll include that. The same goes for
elements I don’t like, elements that don’t “work.” Those I exclude. In
this way, through inclusion of visual elements that appeal, and
exclusion of those that repel—that is, through the filter of my mind’s
cravings and aversions—the photographs evolve into an authentic
record of the way my mind transforms the raw data of the outside
world into my personal point-of-view.
The photographs become a tool, a kind of thankga, or mandala, to
remind me that the way my mind experiences the world, is not
necessarily what happened. When something catches my mind’s eye,
I check to see if what my mind saw resembles what is actually there
enough so that something can be made into a photograph. If it is, I
park the car.
Half the time, standing in the street looking through a viewing filter for
what I thought I saw, I realize that the way my mind initially
assembled the world is so different from what is actually there that I
cannot find a way through my process of photography to make the
world comply. I get back in the car and continue driving. The rest of
the time, I get the tripod and camera out of the car.
I use an old Calumet long-rail set at my eye-height. I want the
photographs to reflect my point-of-view, to come from the place where
I see the world. The format of the black & white images is always 4 by
5 inches, a portrait orientation. I want to tie the images to the history of
photography, to the shapes in which photographs have always been
made. For color film, I use a horizontal orientation and insert a mask
to change the format of what I see into the “Golden Ratio” (1x1.618),
thought to be the ratio of how we as human beings see the world
through our bodies’ equipment.
I began this current series in black & white, and would not have
worked in color but for the state of our current culture. I love the stark,
graphic quality of the long gray scale. The translation of the world
from the full spectrum of light to black & white is emotionally neutral
for me. I don’t see the sense of sadness, the sense of isolation so
often expressed to me by people viewing the work. Where I see the
trees as triumphant, even joyful, surviving the vicissitudes of the
human activity around them, my audience often finds them
uncomfortably dark.
The emotionally neutral translation from the full-color world to the
black & white image, something that was automatic for most people at
one time (all photographic depictions were originally black & white),
has been lost to the ubiquity of today’s color image. So, I began to
experiment with the color image. I wanted to see if the same subject
matter in color could complete my intended communication with the
viewer. I shot the same heroic trees, surviving, even thriving in the
vast, Los Angeles sprawl, only this time in super-saturated color, and
in Leonardo da Vinci’s Divine Proportion. What would happen if I
added this beauty to the mix?
To be clear, I am trying to get on film the elements out of which my
mind assembles the world: To capture the image that caught my eye,
that made me stop and look—not what is actually there, but what I
thought was there. I know a lot of what I will eventually have do will
happen in the computer, so I’m not looking to pre-visualize every
detail of the image. In fact, I usually find myself terribly disappointed if
what ends up on the film is exactly what I could have imaged would
be there when I made the exposure. I’m hoping to set into motion
events that produce an unpredictable result, events that surprise and
delight.
The world, as you may have already noticed, does not always
cooperate. Sometimes the place I need to be is in the middle of the
street, or through the wall of a building. Then, I follow the line of
where the camera would be in the perfect world, and compensate with
a different focal length of lens. As the position of the camera changes,
so do all the sizes and relationships of the elements. If I can get the
elements I want on the ground glass, then I’ll expose some film. If I
can’t, I go back to the viewing filter, or abandon the image there.
George Haas
On days when the light is good (I favor a lot of bright sun, clear, low
haze), and when I have time, I drive with the intention of making a
photograph. The direction I travel depends on the time of day. If I
want light over the whole landscape and it’s morning, I drive west.
North or south give me what I call “half-light,” the surfaces facing east
are lit, and the surfaces facing west are in shadow; the reverse is true
in the afternoon. I’ll shoot any time of the day. I’ve found restricting
myself to dawn or dusk, to the “magic hours,” produced images that
did not remind me of the Los Angeles I live. Driving against the light
with its high contrast and distinct forms, though often compelling in
the mind, usually fails to translate into a photograph. The shadow
areas go flat, muddy, and the highlights block up. The capacity of the
mind to select aspects of the world, make adjustments, and then
combine them into an image of the world, still bests any photographic
process I’ve found.
It is an aimless sort of driving around Los Angeles. I let my eye lead,
turning to what attracts, hoping a set of elements will catch my eye,
fascinate. I keep a list, in my mind, of the elements I work with: trees,
of course, streetlights, telephone poles, wires, blur.
The elements come from the work, a kind of distillation. Something
“works” in a photograph, the lines of electrical wires, say, or the
texture of a telephone pole; I’ll look for that something out in the world
to include in the next photograph. In shooting it, some other element I
like may come into play, and I’ll include that. The same goes for
elements I don’t like, elements that don’t “work.” Those I exclude. In
this way, through inclusion of visual elements that appeal, and
exclusion of those that repel—that is, through the filter of my mind’s
cravings and aversions—the photographs evolve into an authentic
record of the way my mind transforms the raw data of the outside
world into my personal point-of-view.
The photographs become a tool, a kind of thankga, or mandala, to
remind me that the way my mind experiences the world, is not
necessarily what happened. When something catches my mind’s eye,
I check to see if what my mind saw resembles what is actually there
enough so that something can be made into a photograph. If it is, I
park the car.
Half the time, standing in the street looking through a viewing filter for
what I thought I saw, I realize that the way my mind initially
assembled the world is so different from what is actually there that I
cannot find a way through my process of photography to make the
world comply. I get back in the car and continue driving. The rest of
the time, I get the tripod and camera out of the car.
I use an old Calumet long-rail set at my eye-height. I want the
photographs to reflect my point-of-view, to come from the place where
I see the world. The format of the black & white images is always 4 by
5 inches, a portrait orientation. I want to tie the images to the history of
photography, to the shapes in which photographs have always been
made. For color film, I use a horizontal orientation and insert a mask
to change the format of what I see into the “Golden Ratio” (1x1.618),
thought to be the ratio of how we as human beings see the world
through our bodies’ equipment.
I began this current series in black & white, and would not have
worked in color but for the state of our current culture. I love the stark,
graphic quality of the long gray scale. The translation of the world
from the full spectrum of light to black & white is emotionally neutral
for me. I don’t see the sense of sadness, the sense of isolation so
often expressed to me by people viewing the work. Where I see the
trees as triumphant, even joyful, surviving the vicissitudes of the
human activity around them, my audience often finds them
uncomfortably dark.
The emotionally neutral translation from the full-color world to the
black & white image, something that was automatic for most people at
one time (all photographic depictions were originally black & white),
has been lost to the ubiquity of today’s color image. So, I began to
experiment with the color image. I wanted to see if the same subject
matter in color could complete my intended communication with the
viewer. I shot the same heroic trees, surviving, even thriving in the
vast, Los Angeles sprawl, only this time in super-saturated color, and
in Leonardo da Vinci’s Divine Proportion. What would happen if I
added this beauty to the mix?
To be clear, I am trying to get on film the elements out of which my
mind assembles the world: To capture the image that caught my eye,
that made me stop and look—not what is actually there, but what I
thought was there. I know a lot of what I will eventually have do will
happen in the computer, so I’m not looking to pre-visualize every
detail of the image. In fact, I usually find myself terribly disappointed if
what ends up on the film is exactly what I could have imaged would
be there when I made the exposure. I’m hoping to set into motion
events that produce an unpredictable result, events that surprise and
delight.
The world, as you may have already noticed, does not always
cooperate. Sometimes the place I need to be is in the middle of the
street, or through the wall of a building. Then, I follow the line of
where the camera would be in the perfect world, and compensate with
a different focal length of lens. As the position of the camera changes,
so do all the sizes and relationships of the elements. If I can get the
elements I want on the ground glass, then I’ll expose some film. If I
can’t, I go back to the viewing filter, or abandon the image there.
Palm #13, Topanga Canyon, 2002
I try to get out of the way of my
conscious mind—of my desire to
be praised and avoid blame—to
create an image that
authentically represents my view
of the world. If I can concentrate
to the point where my sense of
self disappears, I can run
through the entire process of
exposing the film without really
having any conscious retention
of what I’ve photographed.
* * *
If you pay attention to the way
your mind assembles the image
of the world around you, you will
notice that your eye
conscious mind—of my desire to
be praised and avoid blame—to
create an image that
authentically represents my view
of the world. If I can concentrate
to the point where my sense of
self disappears, I can run
through the entire process of
exposing the film without really
having any conscious retention
of what I’ve photographed.
* * *
If you pay attention to the way
your mind assembles the image
of the world around you, you will
notice that your eye
roams around the area in front of you, selects an aspect, focuses, and
then moves to the next aspect. Your mind combines these aspects,
filling in any defects, into what we come to rely on as an accurate
representation of the world we experience around us, even though
most of the time it isn’t.
At twilight, sit in your car stopped at an intersection. Fix your focus
across the intersection, and without moving your eyes, let a speeding
car pass through your field of vision. Notice how you see the speeding
car as a blur, as transparent—how the light catches the chrome and
creates a pattern. Notice the compulsion, the habit of mind, to shift
focus and to follow the traveling car. Also notice that if you let your
eye follow the passing car, it becomes sharp, solid. Notice if you can,
how the addition of the sound around you when combined with the
image flashes into the belief that what you are seeing and hearing is
real. This is the activity of your mind creating the world.
I use blur as an element in the photographs to represent the raw data.
I want to be constantly reminded that my view is an interpretation of a
world, not the world itself. It is a world where everything changes,
where everything, without exception, comes and goes in an unending
cycle of simultaneous expansion and contraction, polarization, and
cessation.
then moves to the next aspect. Your mind combines these aspects,
filling in any defects, into what we come to rely on as an accurate
representation of the world we experience around us, even though
most of the time it isn’t.
At twilight, sit in your car stopped at an intersection. Fix your focus
across the intersection, and without moving your eyes, let a speeding
car pass through your field of vision. Notice how you see the speeding
car as a blur, as transparent—how the light catches the chrome and
creates a pattern. Notice the compulsion, the habit of mind, to shift
focus and to follow the traveling car. Also notice that if you let your
eye follow the passing car, it becomes sharp, solid. Notice if you can,
how the addition of the sound around you when combined with the
image flashes into the belief that what you are seeing and hearing is
real. This is the activity of your mind creating the world.
I use blur as an element in the photographs to represent the raw data.
I want to be constantly reminded that my view is an interpretation of a
world, not the world itself. It is a world where everything changes,
where everything, without exception, comes and goes in an unending
cycle of simultaneous expansion and contraction, polarization, and
cessation.
To shift the focus from the
activity of human beings to the
activity of the tree, I made the
exposures long. Long exposures
abstract the human activity into
streaks, into stripes of lightness,
leaving the trees central. The
captured movement of trees, in
the waving branches, in the
shimmer of light reflecting of
blowing leaves, was intended to
create an aliveness, a more
accurate representation of a
living tree.
The short exposure is the one
that freezes the action of an
event—think of a bullet forever
frozen in space leaving a gun
activity of human beings to the
activity of the tree, I made the
exposures long. Long exposures
abstract the human activity into
streaks, into stripes of lightness,
leaving the trees central. The
captured movement of trees, in
the waving branches, in the
shimmer of light reflecting of
blowing leaves, was intended to
create an aliveness, a more
accurate representation of a
living tree.
The short exposure is the one
that freezes the action of an
event—think of a bullet forever
frozen in space leaving a gun
barrel or a hummingbird caught in mid-flap. This expands our sense
of time and allows us to see what is normally beyond our physical
capabilities. Included in our assumptions about this expansion is a
belief that our experience is deeper, our understanding greater. With
it comes an increase in our willingness to substitute what is
represented in a photograph or on-screen, for our direct experience.
The short exposure, in this way, inflates the value of our mind created
worldview, while at the same time devaluing our direct experience.The
long exposure is also a sense-enhancer by compressing time,
combining events into an accumulation we could not otherwise
directly experience. But, instead of reinforcing our belief, we question
what we are seeing, and in our need to make sense of it, we generate
a kind of opening in our otherwise rock-solid belief.
I tighten down the camera and tripod so the act of putting the film
holder into the camera does not change the frame (which is really
annoying when it happens, and I don’t realize until later when I’m
looking at the film), and then wait for the human element, for
whomever happens along and causes the blur. I generally make two
good exposures (in Los Angeles, on a side-street, foot traffic is
sometimes rare, my patience usually wears out if I have to wait more
than twenty-five or thirty minutes).
I process the black & white film at home in the kitchen sink. (I use a
lab to process the color film.) I use a Pyrogallol/Metol/Sodium
Carbonate developer, Wimberley’s WD2D+, which I get through
Photographer’s Formulary in Montana, for the incredible range of
tonality in the highlights. It’s a throwback to the nineteenth century
and difficult to use, but the results are spectacular. I process in an old
Nikor tank that holds 12 sheets of film. The trick here is to lock the film
in behind the posts on the reel so the film doesn’t slip out during the
very vigorous agitation. You really have to agitate, way, way beyond
what you would ever do for any other developer or the development
will be uneven. Also, don’t overfill; leave enough room so the
developer can move over the surface of the film.
Since I’m scanning the film and printing digitally, the stain isn’t so
important. With the WD2D+ I can skip the staining bath and cut down
my development time, plus I consistently get a more even
development than with some of the other Pyro developers. I use
distilled water as a final bath, before I hang the negatives to dry,
which seems to be the best thing for eliminating watermarks. I take
the color film to Dickran Labs on Temple for processing.
I use one of those location pop-up darkrooms, a glorified changing
bag really, for loading and unloading film and my computer gear. I
have no darkroom. I scan the negatives into Photoshop (currently CS)
unsharpened. I make as much of the adjustment as I can in the
scanner. I go back and forth at low-res, making scans, adjusting,
making scans, and adjusting, so I know what to do when I scan hi-res.
I look at all of the exposures of the same location at the same time to
see if there is something there that interests me enough go through
the process (read: pain) of printing. If there isn’t, I chuck the negative
and move on to the next. If there is, I select the negative or negatives I’
ll use to make the image.
Some of the photographs are made from one negative; some are
composites of more than one. I make a low-res scan so I am free to
work quickly through the trial and error of adjustments. I frame the
image first. I’m not concerned with the dimensions particularly,
because I can adjust those. I’m going for balance, perfect structural
balance. The only limit on stretching or compressing the image into
the format it will eventually become is the extent to which it disrupts
my ability to believe that the photograph accurately represents the
events depicted. If there is a thought about the veracity of the image
in the mind of the viewer, I want that thought to be a question, not a
statement. “You stretched this, right?” not “This has been stretched.
The street sign looks a mile long.”
of time and allows us to see what is normally beyond our physical
capabilities. Included in our assumptions about this expansion is a
belief that our experience is deeper, our understanding greater. With
it comes an increase in our willingness to substitute what is
represented in a photograph or on-screen, for our direct experience.
The short exposure, in this way, inflates the value of our mind created
worldview, while at the same time devaluing our direct experience.The
long exposure is also a sense-enhancer by compressing time,
combining events into an accumulation we could not otherwise
directly experience. But, instead of reinforcing our belief, we question
what we are seeing, and in our need to make sense of it, we generate
a kind of opening in our otherwise rock-solid belief.
I tighten down the camera and tripod so the act of putting the film
holder into the camera does not change the frame (which is really
annoying when it happens, and I don’t realize until later when I’m
looking at the film), and then wait for the human element, for
whomever happens along and causes the blur. I generally make two
good exposures (in Los Angeles, on a side-street, foot traffic is
sometimes rare, my patience usually wears out if I have to wait more
than twenty-five or thirty minutes).
I process the black & white film at home in the kitchen sink. (I use a
lab to process the color film.) I use a Pyrogallol/Metol/Sodium
Carbonate developer, Wimberley’s WD2D+, which I get through
Photographer’s Formulary in Montana, for the incredible range of
tonality in the highlights. It’s a throwback to the nineteenth century
and difficult to use, but the results are spectacular. I process in an old
Nikor tank that holds 12 sheets of film. The trick here is to lock the film
in behind the posts on the reel so the film doesn’t slip out during the
very vigorous agitation. You really have to agitate, way, way beyond
what you would ever do for any other developer or the development
will be uneven. Also, don’t overfill; leave enough room so the
developer can move over the surface of the film.
Since I’m scanning the film and printing digitally, the stain isn’t so
important. With the WD2D+ I can skip the staining bath and cut down
my development time, plus I consistently get a more even
development than with some of the other Pyro developers. I use
distilled water as a final bath, before I hang the negatives to dry,
which seems to be the best thing for eliminating watermarks. I take
the color film to Dickran Labs on Temple for processing.
I use one of those location pop-up darkrooms, a glorified changing
bag really, for loading and unloading film and my computer gear. I
have no darkroom. I scan the negatives into Photoshop (currently CS)
unsharpened. I make as much of the adjustment as I can in the
scanner. I go back and forth at low-res, making scans, adjusting,
making scans, and adjusting, so I know what to do when I scan hi-res.
I look at all of the exposures of the same location at the same time to
see if there is something there that interests me enough go through
the process (read: pain) of printing. If there isn’t, I chuck the negative
and move on to the next. If there is, I select the negative or negatives I’
ll use to make the image.
Some of the photographs are made from one negative; some are
composites of more than one. I make a low-res scan so I am free to
work quickly through the trial and error of adjustments. I frame the
image first. I’m not concerned with the dimensions particularly,
because I can adjust those. I’m going for balance, perfect structural
balance. The only limit on stretching or compressing the image into
the format it will eventually become is the extent to which it disrupts
my ability to believe that the photograph accurately represents the
events depicted. If there is a thought about the veracity of the image
in the mind of the viewer, I want that thought to be a question, not a
statement. “You stretched this, right?” not “This has been stretched.
The street sign looks a mile long.”
Ash #2, Carson, 2003
Negative 1
Negative 2
Negative 3
Ficus #18, Los Angeles, 2006
I drop in or remove elements
from the image. I’m mostly
working with the blurred
elements, with the human
activity. (But, I have been known
to prune a few trees, here and
there.) I have found that the
standard hard-edge layering
approach in Photoshop,
carefully defining the edge of
the element you’re dropping in,
often leaves a readable seam,
so I quickly select and copy the
piece I want to use, put it into a
layer on top of the background
image, position it, and then use
the eraser tool, set to a soft
edge, to blend it in seamlessly.
All sorts of adjustments can be
handled this way. Select, copy
into a new layer, change, and
then blend it back in with the
eraser tool. To remove some
small stuff, I’ll use the Clone
Stamp tool. For bigger areas, I’ll
copy an area, cover, and blend. I
find selecting a limited tonal
from the image. I’m mostly
working with the blurred
elements, with the human
activity. (But, I have been known
to prune a few trees, here and
there.) I have found that the
standard hard-edge layering
approach in Photoshop,
carefully defining the edge of
the element you’re dropping in,
often leaves a readable seam,
so I quickly select and copy the
piece I want to use, put it into a
layer on top of the background
image, position it, and then use
the eraser tool, set to a soft
edge, to blend it in seamlessly.
All sorts of adjustments can be
handled this way. Select, copy
into a new layer, change, and
then blend it back in with the
eraser tool. To remove some
small stuff, I’ll use the Clone
Stamp tool. For bigger areas, I’ll
copy an area, cover, and blend. I
find selecting a limited tonal
range, and increasing the saturation can enhance the 3D effect of the
images. That process can be repeated in the same area for maximum
effect.
I size the image; adjust the contrast and the tonal range, and
sharpen. When I get the image to work, I re-scan at high resolution
and go through the whole process again—although this way through,
I know pretty well where I’m going. For scanning film, the higher the
resolution the better, up to the point, that is, that you can bear to
retouch all the defects the higher resolution brings into the image.
Output to inkjet, I use Epson. I print the black and white using a RIP
from Bowhaus.com called IJC/OPM, which works the best of any of
the ones I’ve tried.
* * *
Why trees, when cities are mostly defined by their architecture and by
the activities of the people who inhabit them? In Los Angeles, where
half the population has lived for less than five years, there is no
memory for things past, no structural legacy we would all like to
maintain, no regard for the architecture. An old house here (a
derogatory term, by the way) could have been constructed as recently
as the 1970s. What passes for antique furniture here is likely to have
been made after the 1920s (any place east of the Mississippi would
label it as “used”). Remember, before 1920, there wasn’t much here in
the way of what is here now. In the great immeasurable sameness of
how we have built the vast, sprawling Los Angeles, architecture has
lost its capacity to create identity. You can no longer tell one place
from another. And, the principle business, defense contracting, offers
little in the way of cultural identity, hidden as it is by National Security
concerns, and overshadowed by the glitz of its puny-by-comparison
rival, entertainment. (And, as we have all, long accepted, neither
business functions with integrity.)
Besides, buildings are dead, and I wanted a living witness. Impartial.
Immovable. A faithful recorder of events here on this spot of ground,
no matter what happens, no matter what indignities have to be
suffered, and who strives everyday, free from the slightest hesitation,
to grow. I wanted a reassuring presence. Walking down a street
where the trees are healthy, growing, and beautiful, we feel at ease,
safe, and almost happy. Walking down another street where the trees
are desperate, broken, or barely clinging to life or missing, we are on
guard, frightened, or paranoid. If the trees are old, stately, and
varying in age, we know that the neighborhood is stable, and the
community functioning. If the trees are all young and newly planted,
then we know the neighborhood is new and the community less
cohesive. If we know how to decode the messages trees give us, we
know the climate, the season, the month, and even the week. For
instance, Trumpet trees bloom in February, Jacaranda’s in April and
May, the Ginkgo’s light green leaves turn a yellow-gold in December.
They leaf out again in March.
Although Los Angeles is now my home, I learned to decode the
natural world from my mother in Illinois. She kept with the help of my
grandmother an English garden. They worked with the local garden
club maintaining the Shakespeare Garden on the Northwestern
campus.
When I thought of a Shakespeare Garden, I envisioned something
extraordinary, elaborate, and massive, like on the grounds of a
palace. I remember visiting it for the first time and completely missing
it. I was in the right place, but I could not comprehend what I was
looking at. I went back to my mother for the proper directions to the
place, and she gave me the ones I already had. I went back and still
could not see what I was looking at.
The garden was small, rectangular, with tall hedges surrounding a
single flowerbed. There were four openings in the hedge wall for view
and access. The plants in the bed were seemingly without continuity,
without sense. I went back to my mother and she explained that all
the plants growing in the garden were mentioned in Shakespeare.
That was the sense of it.
In the world of science, there are thought to be two natures, Lumpers
and Splitters. Lumpers tend to see the connections that tie groups
together. Splitters tend to see the differences that divide. My mother
and grandmother were splitters. When I asked a question about the
garden they would answer in detail, plant names in Latin right down
to the cultivar. Why a particular plant was planted where it was
planted, shade or sun, water, fertilizer, early, mid or late blooming. I
came to see the orchestration of the garden. Each flowerbed
coordinated for blooming. Different shrubs collected and planted for
the palette of their foliage, the different shades of green layered with
the different heights they could grow, the trees for shade, for color,
spring, summer and fall.
I began to feel a sense of personal safety in the world, not only
knowing that almost everything had a name, but also that everything
has a nature (shade plants do better in the shade), that there is an
order to the universe. I’m a Lumper by nature. I don’t need to know
the names in Latin. The photographs, for instance, are ordered by the
common name of the tree (unless I feel the name of the genus is
more commonly known), the place by city or district, not street or
number. The year, not the month, or day, or hour, or second ad
infinitum.
My mother put a pair of the earliest blooming shrub she could find on
each side of the back door where she couldn’t miss them. It was a
shrub totally out of place with the rest of her garden, and while I don’t
remember the name, the flowers were a large, bright yellowy-orange
with a purple center. She said that because those flowers opened
while the rest of the world still dormant, they were a banner of hope
for her that the dreariness of her terrible winter depression would end,
and life could go on. But, for me, they were the announcement that it
was time to watch for the incredible transformation the world was
about to make.
Back then it never occurred to me when I went around proudly
declaring that my mother kept an English garden, that her garden in
suburban Chicago might as well have been a million miles from
England for all it resembled a true English garden. The garden my
mother kept was based on a notion of gardens in New England, at the
time of the birth of our nation. It was what the immigrants of centuries
ago were doing at the time—surrounding themselves with a facsimile
of the land they once knew, the land on which they had built their
cultural identity, in order to feel more at home. Converting the cultural
identity they built as children into a cultural identity for the here-and-
now.
* * *
Growing up, my identity was pretty basic, “I am American.” I think I
was in the fourth grade—before I added Protestant to my string of
adjectives of identity. I came home from school with a form that
wanted me to declare my religion. I asked my mother, “What should I
check?” She thought about it for a second or two and said, “Put
Protestant.” That made sense to me: the Cub Scout troop I belonged
to met in the basement of the Second Presbyterian Church. So there I
was, an American Protestant—not religious in any way I knew about—
the son of American Protestants, who were fully assimilated into
American culture, with the understanding that it was essential for
them to achieve this assimilation on behalf of their parents even if the
importance of the assimilation was unclear, and for us, as their
children, to maintain it. (My dad would often say by way of this, “You
got to speak the English,” even though that’s the only language we all
spoke.)
If you asked my mother what our nationality was, she would tell you
her American parents were both of English descent. When I would
ask “Where exactly, what town?” she said, “I don’t really know, my
parents never really talked about it.” And, for all practical purposes,
she was English. Her mother, my grandmother, had seen to that by
way of one of our most enduring American values: the right to self-
invention.
When I was 16, my grandmother asked me if I would drive her to the
wedding of a second cousin in Indiana I had never heard of before.
She was recognized and greeted warmly by everyone over seventy,
people I only vaguely remembered meeting once as a small child
when we went to the South Side of Chicago to see the old family
candle factory a few days before it was urban-renewaled into the
University of Illinois. We sat on the groom’s side. I noticed a full
complement of bridesmaids and groomsmen, twelve and twelve,
something you were not likely to see in Protestant circles. “We have
Catholics in the family,” I whispered? “Shhhh,” my grandmother
exhaled around an extended forefinger pressed against her lips. I
waited until I was driving her home to get to the bottom of things. This
is what she told me.
“I grew up in Canada on the wheat plains of Alberta in one of those
log cabins with a sod roof. You cannot imagine, given the life you’ve
had. One day, I must have been 17; I came out of the hut into the
bright sun. You had to stoop to get through the door, and then give it
a moment for your eyes to adjust. I’m not kidding. I stood there
looking around. Nothing but wheat as far as the eye can see—and
this voice inside my head, said clear as day, ‘You’ve got to get the hell
out of here.’ So I talked my mother into sending me to college, not for
an education, but to get a husband, to marry well. That’s what they
used to call it in those days. It took her a year to convince my father to
send me. I went to Lake Forest, lots of sons of the well off. I had a
year to find somebody, September to June or back I went.
My mother, when she was putting me on the train, grabbed my arm, it
was so hard for her to say, but she was so determined, ‘It isn’t a good
time to be an Irish Catholic, not if you’re going to get a husband.’ So I
got off the train a British Protestant.”
I asked my father about his background, he didn’t know much beyond
his being American, of American parents. That is to say, people who
were born here. When I followed up with his mother, she said, “I'm
American, just like you. Upper-middle class for three generations.”
She said my grandfather was French. When I pointed out that “Haas”
didn’t sound French to me but German, she said it was,
“Americanized, from de Haase, from the Alsace, that space on the
map between France and Germany along the Rhine. Not that I knew
anything about the derivation of names or language, or much of
anything else, except that so soon after World War II the German
thing might not be that cool. “We still have relatives outside Lyon,”
she said as a way of establishing our side. “They run the big bakery
there, you know, French bread. You should go. Your father was the
last one to visit, just after he finished college.” I asked my dad about it
when I was leaving for my first solo trip to Europe. He said that they’d
kept him well for a few days, and that they’d probably be happy to
see me, but no one could find their address. “Just go to the biggest
bakery in Lyon, you’ll find them.” I did, but they weren’t there.
* * *
In Los Angeles, the complicated nature of people’s identities was not
lost on the developers, on the hucksters, on the city officials of a
century ago, who wanted to turn the nothing they had into something
everybody wanted. All they would need to make themselves richer
than their wildest dreams was for the huddled masses to move out
here—like my grandmother stepping on that train—and make a better
life for themselves.
But, how do you get people to leave their homes, pull up roots, and
travel thousands of miles? Leave the temperate climates of the east,
of the south, the climates that remind them of their cultural roots in
Europe (or the cultural roots imposed on them), break the ties that
bind them to their very natures, and move to a desert, to a sandy lot?
No easy feat, given that, at the time everyone was losing their shirts
because a prolonged drought had turned the breadbasket of the
American mid-west into a dust bowl. I mean, come on, what person in
their right mind, desperate for a few drops of rain, would move from
the dust bowl of Oklahoma to a place they’d never seen, and where
the only thing they ever heard about it was that it never rained in
Southern California, at a time in history when all of Los Angeles
looked like pretty much the way Lancaster looks today? Not one—
unless they developed a plan.
images. That process can be repeated in the same area for maximum
effect.
I size the image; adjust the contrast and the tonal range, and
sharpen. When I get the image to work, I re-scan at high resolution
and go through the whole process again—although this way through,
I know pretty well where I’m going. For scanning film, the higher the
resolution the better, up to the point, that is, that you can bear to
retouch all the defects the higher resolution brings into the image.
Output to inkjet, I use Epson. I print the black and white using a RIP
from Bowhaus.com called IJC/OPM, which works the best of any of
the ones I’ve tried.
* * *
Why trees, when cities are mostly defined by their architecture and by
the activities of the people who inhabit them? In Los Angeles, where
half the population has lived for less than five years, there is no
memory for things past, no structural legacy we would all like to
maintain, no regard for the architecture. An old house here (a
derogatory term, by the way) could have been constructed as recently
as the 1970s. What passes for antique furniture here is likely to have
been made after the 1920s (any place east of the Mississippi would
label it as “used”). Remember, before 1920, there wasn’t much here in
the way of what is here now. In the great immeasurable sameness of
how we have built the vast, sprawling Los Angeles, architecture has
lost its capacity to create identity. You can no longer tell one place
from another. And, the principle business, defense contracting, offers
little in the way of cultural identity, hidden as it is by National Security
concerns, and overshadowed by the glitz of its puny-by-comparison
rival, entertainment. (And, as we have all, long accepted, neither
business functions with integrity.)
Besides, buildings are dead, and I wanted a living witness. Impartial.
Immovable. A faithful recorder of events here on this spot of ground,
no matter what happens, no matter what indignities have to be
suffered, and who strives everyday, free from the slightest hesitation,
to grow. I wanted a reassuring presence. Walking down a street
where the trees are healthy, growing, and beautiful, we feel at ease,
safe, and almost happy. Walking down another street where the trees
are desperate, broken, or barely clinging to life or missing, we are on
guard, frightened, or paranoid. If the trees are old, stately, and
varying in age, we know that the neighborhood is stable, and the
community functioning. If the trees are all young and newly planted,
then we know the neighborhood is new and the community less
cohesive. If we know how to decode the messages trees give us, we
know the climate, the season, the month, and even the week. For
instance, Trumpet trees bloom in February, Jacaranda’s in April and
May, the Ginkgo’s light green leaves turn a yellow-gold in December.
They leaf out again in March.
Although Los Angeles is now my home, I learned to decode the
natural world from my mother in Illinois. She kept with the help of my
grandmother an English garden. They worked with the local garden
club maintaining the Shakespeare Garden on the Northwestern
campus.
When I thought of a Shakespeare Garden, I envisioned something
extraordinary, elaborate, and massive, like on the grounds of a
palace. I remember visiting it for the first time and completely missing
it. I was in the right place, but I could not comprehend what I was
looking at. I went back to my mother for the proper directions to the
place, and she gave me the ones I already had. I went back and still
could not see what I was looking at.
The garden was small, rectangular, with tall hedges surrounding a
single flowerbed. There were four openings in the hedge wall for view
and access. The plants in the bed were seemingly without continuity,
without sense. I went back to my mother and she explained that all
the plants growing in the garden were mentioned in Shakespeare.
That was the sense of it.
In the world of science, there are thought to be two natures, Lumpers
and Splitters. Lumpers tend to see the connections that tie groups
together. Splitters tend to see the differences that divide. My mother
and grandmother were splitters. When I asked a question about the
garden they would answer in detail, plant names in Latin right down
to the cultivar. Why a particular plant was planted where it was
planted, shade or sun, water, fertilizer, early, mid or late blooming. I
came to see the orchestration of the garden. Each flowerbed
coordinated for blooming. Different shrubs collected and planted for
the palette of their foliage, the different shades of green layered with
the different heights they could grow, the trees for shade, for color,
spring, summer and fall.
I began to feel a sense of personal safety in the world, not only
knowing that almost everything had a name, but also that everything
has a nature (shade plants do better in the shade), that there is an
order to the universe. I’m a Lumper by nature. I don’t need to know
the names in Latin. The photographs, for instance, are ordered by the
common name of the tree (unless I feel the name of the genus is
more commonly known), the place by city or district, not street or
number. The year, not the month, or day, or hour, or second ad
infinitum.
My mother put a pair of the earliest blooming shrub she could find on
each side of the back door where she couldn’t miss them. It was a
shrub totally out of place with the rest of her garden, and while I don’t
remember the name, the flowers were a large, bright yellowy-orange
with a purple center. She said that because those flowers opened
while the rest of the world still dormant, they were a banner of hope
for her that the dreariness of her terrible winter depression would end,
and life could go on. But, for me, they were the announcement that it
was time to watch for the incredible transformation the world was
about to make.
Back then it never occurred to me when I went around proudly
declaring that my mother kept an English garden, that her garden in
suburban Chicago might as well have been a million miles from
England for all it resembled a true English garden. The garden my
mother kept was based on a notion of gardens in New England, at the
time of the birth of our nation. It was what the immigrants of centuries
ago were doing at the time—surrounding themselves with a facsimile
of the land they once knew, the land on which they had built their
cultural identity, in order to feel more at home. Converting the cultural
identity they built as children into a cultural identity for the here-and-
now.
* * *
Growing up, my identity was pretty basic, “I am American.” I think I
was in the fourth grade—before I added Protestant to my string of
adjectives of identity. I came home from school with a form that
wanted me to declare my religion. I asked my mother, “What should I
check?” She thought about it for a second or two and said, “Put
Protestant.” That made sense to me: the Cub Scout troop I belonged
to met in the basement of the Second Presbyterian Church. So there I
was, an American Protestant—not religious in any way I knew about—
the son of American Protestants, who were fully assimilated into
American culture, with the understanding that it was essential for
them to achieve this assimilation on behalf of their parents even if the
importance of the assimilation was unclear, and for us, as their
children, to maintain it. (My dad would often say by way of this, “You
got to speak the English,” even though that’s the only language we all
spoke.)
If you asked my mother what our nationality was, she would tell you
her American parents were both of English descent. When I would
ask “Where exactly, what town?” she said, “I don’t really know, my
parents never really talked about it.” And, for all practical purposes,
she was English. Her mother, my grandmother, had seen to that by
way of one of our most enduring American values: the right to self-
invention.
When I was 16, my grandmother asked me if I would drive her to the
wedding of a second cousin in Indiana I had never heard of before.
She was recognized and greeted warmly by everyone over seventy,
people I only vaguely remembered meeting once as a small child
when we went to the South Side of Chicago to see the old family
candle factory a few days before it was urban-renewaled into the
University of Illinois. We sat on the groom’s side. I noticed a full
complement of bridesmaids and groomsmen, twelve and twelve,
something you were not likely to see in Protestant circles. “We have
Catholics in the family,” I whispered? “Shhhh,” my grandmother
exhaled around an extended forefinger pressed against her lips. I
waited until I was driving her home to get to the bottom of things. This
is what she told me.
“I grew up in Canada on the wheat plains of Alberta in one of those
log cabins with a sod roof. You cannot imagine, given the life you’ve
had. One day, I must have been 17; I came out of the hut into the
bright sun. You had to stoop to get through the door, and then give it
a moment for your eyes to adjust. I’m not kidding. I stood there
looking around. Nothing but wheat as far as the eye can see—and
this voice inside my head, said clear as day, ‘You’ve got to get the hell
out of here.’ So I talked my mother into sending me to college, not for
an education, but to get a husband, to marry well. That’s what they
used to call it in those days. It took her a year to convince my father to
send me. I went to Lake Forest, lots of sons of the well off. I had a
year to find somebody, September to June or back I went.
My mother, when she was putting me on the train, grabbed my arm, it
was so hard for her to say, but she was so determined, ‘It isn’t a good
time to be an Irish Catholic, not if you’re going to get a husband.’ So I
got off the train a British Protestant.”
I asked my father about his background, he didn’t know much beyond
his being American, of American parents. That is to say, people who
were born here. When I followed up with his mother, she said, “I'm
American, just like you. Upper-middle class for three generations.”
She said my grandfather was French. When I pointed out that “Haas”
didn’t sound French to me but German, she said it was,
“Americanized, from de Haase, from the Alsace, that space on the
map between France and Germany along the Rhine. Not that I knew
anything about the derivation of names or language, or much of
anything else, except that so soon after World War II the German
thing might not be that cool. “We still have relatives outside Lyon,”
she said as a way of establishing our side. “They run the big bakery
there, you know, French bread. You should go. Your father was the
last one to visit, just after he finished college.” I asked my dad about it
when I was leaving for my first solo trip to Europe. He said that they’d
kept him well for a few days, and that they’d probably be happy to
see me, but no one could find their address. “Just go to the biggest
bakery in Lyon, you’ll find them.” I did, but they weren’t there.
* * *
In Los Angeles, the complicated nature of people’s identities was not
lost on the developers, on the hucksters, on the city officials of a
century ago, who wanted to turn the nothing they had into something
everybody wanted. All they would need to make themselves richer
than their wildest dreams was for the huddled masses to move out
here—like my grandmother stepping on that train—and make a better
life for themselves.
But, how do you get people to leave their homes, pull up roots, and
travel thousands of miles? Leave the temperate climates of the east,
of the south, the climates that remind them of their cultural roots in
Europe (or the cultural roots imposed on them), break the ties that
bind them to their very natures, and move to a desert, to a sandy lot?
No easy feat, given that, at the time everyone was losing their shirts
because a prolonged drought had turned the breadbasket of the
American mid-west into a dust bowl. I mean, come on, what person in
their right mind, desperate for a few drops of rain, would move from
the dust bowl of Oklahoma to a place they’d never seen, and where
the only thing they ever heard about it was that it never rained in
Southern California, at a time in history when all of Los Angeles
looked like pretty much the way Lancaster looks today? Not one—
unless they developed a plan.
Ficus #18, Los Angeles, 2006
They would have to pretty things
up a bit. Since it was too
expensive to do it on the ground,
they would do it in the
brochures, on the billboards,
and in the magazines. If they
wanted to turn the desert into a
pot of gold, they were first going
to have to turn it into the Garden
of Eden. That is, into an English
garden. And, like my mother’s
English garden, it was not the
gardens of Merry Old England,
but the American sensibility of
the gardens of Chicago, of
Kansas City, of Wichita, and of
every small town heart longing
for a sense of safety, peace, and
up a bit. Since it was too
expensive to do it on the ground,
they would do it in the
brochures, on the billboards,
and in the magazines. If they
wanted to turn the desert into a
pot of gold, they were first going
to have to turn it into the Garden
of Eden. That is, into an English
garden. And, like my mother’s
English garden, it was not the
gardens of Merry Old England,
but the American sensibility of
the gardens of Chicago, of
Kansas City, of Wichita, and of
every small town heart longing
for a sense of safety, peace, and
a remembrance of their mother’s love in their determined scratching
out an existence in this life.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe Los Angeles is the Garden of Eden. I
believe this whole planet we fly around the sun on—all of it—is the
Garden of Eden. Though, I do question the wisdom of devaluing the
natural flora (is Los Angeles as a great big desert really so
unattractive?), in favor of an idea about a distant, long abandoned
homeland. Besides, the initial phase of the plan, which was to snag
all the water we could from the Owens River and plant a whole New
World, a new New England paradise in the sunshine, (you can still
find traces in the older neighborhoods, in Eagle Rock, say, or
Pasadena) was completed in the 1930s.
For the second phase, the branding of the Los Angeles identity, the
creation of the Angelino, if you will, they needed an emblem,
something enduring, something easily and perfectly recognizable
across the country. It had to be something that when you saw it would
make you automatically think: Los Angeles. So, trot out the palm tree!
But, since there were so few of them actually here at the time, they
would have to plant them of course. The idea was not to represent the
place as it was per se, but to create a place people would like to come
to. And what better time than the 1932 Olympics to promote our wide-
open spaces? And so we have those great corridors of California and
Mexican fan palms that define our present landscape. That I love.
That we all, all of us Angelinos (and if you’re here longer than five
years, then it’s official: you’re an Angelino), are crazy about palm
trees: Although not for much longer in the scheme of things.
* * *
You might have thought that the California Fan Palm would have
been the one to plant, just to make sure everyone was aware that this
was no longer Mexico, but, apparently when the trees are young you
can’t tell one palm from the other. Only after they grow up is the
difference obvious. The tall skinny ones are the Mexican Fan Palms;
the shorter, stockier ones are the California types. Their life span,
which was thought to be 80 to 100 years, is coming to an end and the
city is not replanting them. They will be gone in thirty years. (You do
the math: 2005-1932=73.)
The cost of young palms skyrocketed on the Spot Market (who knew
there is a Spot Market for tree stock) when Las Vegas and Phoenix
went with the palm. Then there is the cost of maintaining the trees,
which is affected by their height—the higher the climb the higher the
price to prune them. Not that the trees need to be pruned. No one
prunes them in the wild. You see them unpruned, on the side of the
road, along the freeway, columns of brown palm fronds, one stacked
up onto of the other, all the way to the green top. And, if you never
start pruning them, it’s unlikely even the strongest Santa Ana will pull
away the individual fronds, the way they do from the most of the
trimmed trees. You’ve seen them littering the streets after a good
blow. But, the dead fronds wrapped around the trunk are a fire
hazard, and make great habitat for furry creatures. Fire, earthquakes
and rats—even paradise has scourges. (Don’t panic, in the worst-case
scenario, we’ll always have the palm-ified microwave towers.
[Microwave Tower #5 North Hollywood, 2003])
And, there are other palms. The Canary Island Date Palm, from Africa,
with its springtime burst of dazzling, creamy yellow-orange sprays of
inedible dates—you know, the ones they like to prune, or “pineapple”
[Palm #18, Angelino Heights, 2003]. They have to cut of 2/3s of the
fronds, which is not great for the palm tree. I’m guessing these palms
have a three-year frond production cycle. You can see it in the spring
with the new growth coming straight out the top, the last year’s growth
coming straight out from the middle, and the growth from the year
before drooping down around the trunk and finally dying. After
pruning, they take years to come back. You can read that history in
the diameter of the trunk, which is suddenly skinner each time it’s
“pineappled,” gradually getting back to normal, and then pineappled
again.
out an existence in this life.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe Los Angeles is the Garden of Eden. I
believe this whole planet we fly around the sun on—all of it—is the
Garden of Eden. Though, I do question the wisdom of devaluing the
natural flora (is Los Angeles as a great big desert really so
unattractive?), in favor of an idea about a distant, long abandoned
homeland. Besides, the initial phase of the plan, which was to snag
all the water we could from the Owens River and plant a whole New
World, a new New England paradise in the sunshine, (you can still
find traces in the older neighborhoods, in Eagle Rock, say, or
Pasadena) was completed in the 1930s.
For the second phase, the branding of the Los Angeles identity, the
creation of the Angelino, if you will, they needed an emblem,
something enduring, something easily and perfectly recognizable
across the country. It had to be something that when you saw it would
make you automatically think: Los Angeles. So, trot out the palm tree!
But, since there were so few of them actually here at the time, they
would have to plant them of course. The idea was not to represent the
place as it was per se, but to create a place people would like to come
to. And what better time than the 1932 Olympics to promote our wide-
open spaces? And so we have those great corridors of California and
Mexican fan palms that define our present landscape. That I love.
That we all, all of us Angelinos (and if you’re here longer than five
years, then it’s official: you’re an Angelino), are crazy about palm
trees: Although not for much longer in the scheme of things.
* * *
You might have thought that the California Fan Palm would have
been the one to plant, just to make sure everyone was aware that this
was no longer Mexico, but, apparently when the trees are young you
can’t tell one palm from the other. Only after they grow up is the
difference obvious. The tall skinny ones are the Mexican Fan Palms;
the shorter, stockier ones are the California types. Their life span,
which was thought to be 80 to 100 years, is coming to an end and the
city is not replanting them. They will be gone in thirty years. (You do
the math: 2005-1932=73.)
The cost of young palms skyrocketed on the Spot Market (who knew
there is a Spot Market for tree stock) when Las Vegas and Phoenix
went with the palm. Then there is the cost of maintaining the trees,
which is affected by their height—the higher the climb the higher the
price to prune them. Not that the trees need to be pruned. No one
prunes them in the wild. You see them unpruned, on the side of the
road, along the freeway, columns of brown palm fronds, one stacked
up onto of the other, all the way to the green top. And, if you never
start pruning them, it’s unlikely even the strongest Santa Ana will pull
away the individual fronds, the way they do from the most of the
trimmed trees. You’ve seen them littering the streets after a good
blow. But, the dead fronds wrapped around the trunk are a fire
hazard, and make great habitat for furry creatures. Fire, earthquakes
and rats—even paradise has scourges. (Don’t panic, in the worst-case
scenario, we’ll always have the palm-ified microwave towers.
[Microwave Tower #5 North Hollywood, 2003])
And, there are other palms. The Canary Island Date Palm, from Africa,
with its springtime burst of dazzling, creamy yellow-orange sprays of
inedible dates—you know, the ones they like to prune, or “pineapple”
[Palm #18, Angelino Heights, 2003]. They have to cut of 2/3s of the
fronds, which is not great for the palm tree. I’m guessing these palms
have a three-year frond production cycle. You can see it in the spring
with the new growth coming straight out the top, the last year’s growth
coming straight out from the middle, and the growth from the year
before drooping down around the trunk and finally dying. After
pruning, they take years to come back. You can read that history in
the diameter of the trunk, which is suddenly skinner each time it’s
“pineappled,” gradually getting back to normal, and then pineappled
again.
There is the King Palm from
Australia, with its green-gray flat
pinnate fronds whirling around
the trunk, which have the good
manners to fall off all by
themselves when they die, so
there is no need to prune. With
their perfect, lavender to purple
flowers, followed by succulent,
indehiscent, round bright red
drupe. And the Queen Palm,
from Brazil, green pinnate
fronds, bushy almost, small
cream to yellow flowers,
date-like fruit. You can plant
Mexican Blue Palms, Guadalupe
Palms, Chilean Wine Palms,
Pindo Palms, Date Palms, or
Australia, with its green-gray flat
pinnate fronds whirling around
the trunk, which have the good
manners to fall off all by
themselves when they die, so
there is no need to prune. With
their perfect, lavender to purple
flowers, followed by succulent,
indehiscent, round bright red
drupe. And the Queen Palm,
from Brazil, green pinnate
fronds, bushy almost, small
cream to yellow flowers,
date-like fruit. You can plant
Mexican Blue Palms, Guadalupe
Palms, Chilean Wine Palms,
Pindo Palms, Date Palms, or
Palm #32, Los Angeles, 2004
141 otherapproved trees along your curb, a.k.a. the public right-of-
way.
In your own private Idaho, you can pretty much do as you please;
create whatever mini-Nirvana that comes to mind—so long as the
branches of your trees don’t extend across property lines. So long as
you don’t block the view of your neighbors on the hillside above you
(there you can pretty much get as nasty as you can stomach). When
it comes to the public space, we as government have the control. We
as government make the decisions that affect the way we look as a
city. And, even if you can’t really tell what the decision or decisions
were that have made the street in front of your house look the way it
looks, understand, there is a rhythm to the rhyme.
The City of Los Angeles maintains a website, www.lacity.
org/BOSS/streettree/treeguide.htm with all 150 trees listed, some with
pictures and some with links to pictures. A few visits to the site is all it
will take to start learning the names of all the trees you walk past on
the way to your car. Learn one a week and make it a three-year
project. (The Bigleaf Maple, the Box Elder, the White Adler, the
Madrone, the Incense Cedar, the Western Hackberry, the Western
Redbud, the Desert Willow, the Monterey Cypress, the Tan Bark Oak,
the Catalina Ironwood, the Monterey and Torrey Pines, the California
Sycamore, the Mesquite, the Hollyleaf Cherry, the Coastal, Valley and
Mesa Oaks, the Giant Sequoia, the Redwood, the California Laurel
and the California Fan Palm are all native to the region, 24 out of 150.
The rest come from around the world: Australia, China, Brazil, Italy,
Mexico, Japan, Spain, Chile, Lebanon, New Zealand, the Canary
Islands, to name a few. (I got a guidebook for trees native to the west
to keep in the car, but it was of no help since so little of what grows
here today actually came from here, and I had to replace the book
with the international Encyclopedia of Trees.)
You look around at the amazing array of trees here in Los Angeles
from all over the world and you might think, why is he going on about
this pretty picture? And, I don’t mean to pound this “native-thing”
relentlessly. But, imagine, since Los Angeles looks the way it does as
the result of marketing concepts, could we not have the city come up
with a marketing plan that would be just as “identity-satisfying” as the
English garden in the west or the emblem of the Palm, that celebrates
and informs us of the native world around us, and that is also
sustainable? And, without being unduly alarmist, let me point out in
no uncertain terms, three weeks without water, and pretty much
everything you can see from your front window will dry up and blow
away. I’m not trying to take away your beautiful lawn (although, the
lawn thing I don’t really get), but as a community, can’t we direct our
Department of Public Works, to shift their planting decisions in such a
way as to allow Los Angeles to look the way that it really is? And,
yes, I know I am suggesting that at least the public spaces look like a
desert (but only because that is what they are). And, maybe we’ve
grown up enough as a city that we won’t have to pretend to be
somewhere else just so people will come here. We can be who we are.
* * *
In the meantime, do let the tree bug bite you. Drive around Los
Angeles with the intention of watching trees. Learn enough to
anticipate the next burst of color and where to look when it happens.
Look for the first flowers of the year on the Lavender Trumpet Tree in
February (Argentina), or the Sweet Shade’s glorious fragrance of
orange blossom in late spring, or the Red Flowering Gum’s creamy
light pink to salmon to orange to light red masses (Western Australia)
in July and August, or the Ginkgo’s spectacular yellow foliage in
December.
way.
In your own private Idaho, you can pretty much do as you please;
create whatever mini-Nirvana that comes to mind—so long as the
branches of your trees don’t extend across property lines. So long as
you don’t block the view of your neighbors on the hillside above you
(there you can pretty much get as nasty as you can stomach). When
it comes to the public space, we as government have the control. We
as government make the decisions that affect the way we look as a
city. And, even if you can’t really tell what the decision or decisions
were that have made the street in front of your house look the way it
looks, understand, there is a rhythm to the rhyme.
The City of Los Angeles maintains a website, www.lacity.
org/BOSS/streettree/treeguide.htm with all 150 trees listed, some with
pictures and some with links to pictures. A few visits to the site is all it
will take to start learning the names of all the trees you walk past on
the way to your car. Learn one a week and make it a three-year
project. (The Bigleaf Maple, the Box Elder, the White Adler, the
Madrone, the Incense Cedar, the Western Hackberry, the Western
Redbud, the Desert Willow, the Monterey Cypress, the Tan Bark Oak,
the Catalina Ironwood, the Monterey and Torrey Pines, the California
Sycamore, the Mesquite, the Hollyleaf Cherry, the Coastal, Valley and
Mesa Oaks, the Giant Sequoia, the Redwood, the California Laurel
and the California Fan Palm are all native to the region, 24 out of 150.
The rest come from around the world: Australia, China, Brazil, Italy,
Mexico, Japan, Spain, Chile, Lebanon, New Zealand, the Canary
Islands, to name a few. (I got a guidebook for trees native to the west
to keep in the car, but it was of no help since so little of what grows
here today actually came from here, and I had to replace the book
with the international Encyclopedia of Trees.)
You look around at the amazing array of trees here in Los Angeles
from all over the world and you might think, why is he going on about
this pretty picture? And, I don’t mean to pound this “native-thing”
relentlessly. But, imagine, since Los Angeles looks the way it does as
the result of marketing concepts, could we not have the city come up
with a marketing plan that would be just as “identity-satisfying” as the
English garden in the west or the emblem of the Palm, that celebrates
and informs us of the native world around us, and that is also
sustainable? And, without being unduly alarmist, let me point out in
no uncertain terms, three weeks without water, and pretty much
everything you can see from your front window will dry up and blow
away. I’m not trying to take away your beautiful lawn (although, the
lawn thing I don’t really get), but as a community, can’t we direct our
Department of Public Works, to shift their planting decisions in such a
way as to allow Los Angeles to look the way that it really is? And,
yes, I know I am suggesting that at least the public spaces look like a
desert (but only because that is what they are). And, maybe we’ve
grown up enough as a city that we won’t have to pretend to be
somewhere else just so people will come here. We can be who we are.
* * *
In the meantime, do let the tree bug bite you. Drive around Los
Angeles with the intention of watching trees. Learn enough to
anticipate the next burst of color and where to look when it happens.
Look for the first flowers of the year on the Lavender Trumpet Tree in
February (Argentina), or the Sweet Shade’s glorious fragrance of
orange blossom in late spring, or the Red Flowering Gum’s creamy
light pink to salmon to orange to light red masses (Western Australia)
in July and August, or the Ginkgo’s spectacular yellow foliage in
December.
Or, if it helps, all things being
equal and this being Los
Angeles, start with the famous
trees. (I know what you’re
thinking, but there are famous
trees, too, lots of them. There’s
even a guidebook, Exceptional
Trees of Los Angeles, by Donald
R. Hodel.) For instance, nearly
everybody living in Redondo
Beach knows this Moreton Bay
Fig (Queensland), located in
Veteran’s Park. The plaque
under the tree commemorates
the 90th anniversary of its
planting in 1982 ((2006-1982)
+90=114).
* * *
equal and this being Los
Angeles, start with the famous
trees. (I know what you’re
thinking, but there are famous
trees, too, lots of them. There’s
even a guidebook, Exceptional
Trees of Los Angeles, by Donald
R. Hodel.) For instance, nearly
everybody living in Redondo
Beach knows this Moreton Bay
Fig (Queensland), located in
Veteran’s Park. The plaque
under the tree commemorates
the 90th anniversary of its
planting in 1982 ((2006-1982)
+90=114).
* * *
Ficus #5, Redondo Beach, 2002
Let me tell you a couple of “tree-watching” stories: I was setting up my
camera in Thousand Oaks [Live Oak #11, Thousand Oaks, 2003].
Every car that drove by, fifteen or more stopped, and every single
driver asked with some variation, “Are they planning on cutting that
tree down?” “No, not that I know of. It’s just such a great tree, I’m
taking a picture it.” “What for?” “Fun.” “Fun?” “Just for fun.”
Just For Fun was the toy store on Main Street in town where I grew
up; so saying that has the double effect of reminding me of another
place and time while defusing any potential question about whether I
should be allowed to expose some film. It works magic everywhere
except in downtown LA where I have been stopped and told in all
seriousness by the security guards surrounding me, “You could rig a
rocket launcher inside that thing and take down one of the
skyscrapers, how do I know?”
The last guy to stop me in Thousand Oaks said, “I can have this entire
neighborhood here in fifteen minutes! That’s 30 or 40 people. We’ll
surround that tree, you hear me? In shifts if we have to. You won't be
able to get near it.”
camera in Thousand Oaks [Live Oak #11, Thousand Oaks, 2003].
Every car that drove by, fifteen or more stopped, and every single
driver asked with some variation, “Are they planning on cutting that
tree down?” “No, not that I know of. It’s just such a great tree, I’m
taking a picture it.” “What for?” “Fun.” “Fun?” “Just for fun.”
Just For Fun was the toy store on Main Street in town where I grew
up; so saying that has the double effect of reminding me of another
place and time while defusing any potential question about whether I
should be allowed to expose some film. It works magic everywhere
except in downtown LA where I have been stopped and told in all
seriousness by the security guards surrounding me, “You could rig a
rocket launcher inside that thing and take down one of the
skyscrapers, how do I know?”
The last guy to stop me in Thousand Oaks said, “I can have this entire
neighborhood here in fifteen minutes! That’s 30 or 40 people. We’ll
surround that tree, you hear me? In shifts if we have to. You won't be
able to get near it.”
I was setting up on the side of
dirt road off a two-lane highway
in Canyon Country to take a
picture of an old Cottonwood. A
school bus stopped, and a little
girl got off and walked along the
road until she saw me. She then
took off running for her house. I
thought to myself, she’s
probably been taught to run
from strange men lurking in the
woods, which on the face of it is
not such a bad idea. When her
mother burst out of the house,
jumped into a small pickup, and
raced down the road in my
direction, I thought, “Oh, God,
here we go.”
dirt road off a two-lane highway
in Canyon Country to take a
picture of an old Cottonwood. A
school bus stopped, and a little
girl got off and walked along the
road until she saw me. She then
took off running for her house. I
thought to myself, she’s
probably been taught to run
from strange men lurking in the
woods, which on the face of it is
not such a bad idea. When her
mother burst out of the house,
jumped into a small pickup, and
raced down the road in my
direction, I thought, “Oh, God,
here we go.”
Cottonwood #2, Canyon Country, 2002
When she leaped out of the truck and ran toward me waving her
arms, shouting, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” I shouted back, “I’m just
taking a picture! ” She stopped, assembled a different picture in her
mind, and pointed at the camera. “What’s that?” “A camera.” “What?”
“A CAMERA.” I had to talk really loud; she was hard of hearing. “What
for?” “TO TAKE A PICTURE.” She looked around for something
worthy of a picture. “Of what?” I pointed to the tree. “It’s dead, you
know?” “Is it?” “What?” “IS IT REALLY DEAD?” “What are you taking a
picture for? They going to cut it down?” “FOR FUN.” She walked
away, stopped half way back to her truck, and looked at me over her
shoulder, “Sometimes we find people here in their cars. You know
what I mean?” I was thinking, given what she had initially said, that I
did, so I nodded in the affirmative. She got back in her truck and
drove back to her daughter who had watched our entire interaction
from the front porch of their house.
Another time I was setting up on the roadside outside Gorman
[Cottonwood #1, Gorman, 2002], and I was really in a rush because I
was losing the light. A guy named Steve, in one of those monster, six-
wheeled pick up trucks swerved over from the opposite lane. I thought
he was going to run me down, but he stopped literally inches, under a
foot, from the camera and glided the window down. “That’s my favorite
tree,” were the first words out of his mouth. “I’m just crazy for Oaks.” I
say, “Don’t you mean, Cottonwood?” “Oak, one of those Live Oaks.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s a Cottonwood.” “That’s an
Oak.” I say, “No, look at that triangular (what I meant to say was:
deltoid) leaf. If that were an oak it would be sort of an oval. It would be
evergreen, like Holly.” I make the shape with my thumbs and
forefingers. “That’s an Oak,” he says. “I don’t care what you say, you’
re just wrong.” I go back to my set up. He sits there watching me. I get
to the point where I pull the slide and wait for something to happen. I
can see this isn’t making sense to him, “What are you waiting for?”
“Something to happen,” I say. “Whaddaya mean?” “I’m trying to
photograph the interaction between human beings and trees. I got the
tree part, now I’m waiting for the human doing.” “Listen, if you want
that to be a Cottonwood, then that’s alright with me, for you, that’s a
Cottonwood.” A tractor-trailer with an all chromed-side rolls by. I click
the shutter, watching my wristwatch. “That truck isn’t going to block
everything?” “Naw, with a long exposure you’ll hardly notice it was
ever there.” 30 seconds ticks off and I close the shutter. “You leave
that thing on for a long time, that’s what you mean?” “Yeah, 30
seconds.” Steve hands me his card. “Send me one of those, would
you? I’ll pay you.” I take the card. “That would be great.” He takes his
foot off the brake and creeps forward, checking traffic, clicks on his
turn signal, looks back at me, “For me, it’ll always be an Oak,” then he
pulls onto the road kicking up a cloud of dust. I re-clean the lens.
Nothing happens around me. The light is fading fast, so I expose the
second piece of film without the human component, just so I’ll have a
full tank when I go to process. I pack up and drive to the 5.
I am not so secure in my tree identification that I didn’t look up a
Cottonwood and a Live Oak when I scanned the negative. I magnified
it (if that’s the right word) until I could see a single leaf, and then I
matched the leaf as closely as I could to a picture in my encyclopedia
of trees. After prolonged internal debate, I convinced myself that the
tree in question was a Cottonwood. You’ll let me know if I was wrong.
* * *
arms, shouting, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” I shouted back, “I’m just
taking a picture! ” She stopped, assembled a different picture in her
mind, and pointed at the camera. “What’s that?” “A camera.” “What?”
“A CAMERA.” I had to talk really loud; she was hard of hearing. “What
for?” “TO TAKE A PICTURE.” She looked around for something
worthy of a picture. “Of what?” I pointed to the tree. “It’s dead, you
know?” “Is it?” “What?” “IS IT REALLY DEAD?” “What are you taking a
picture for? They going to cut it down?” “FOR FUN.” She walked
away, stopped half way back to her truck, and looked at me over her
shoulder, “Sometimes we find people here in their cars. You know
what I mean?” I was thinking, given what she had initially said, that I
did, so I nodded in the affirmative. She got back in her truck and
drove back to her daughter who had watched our entire interaction
from the front porch of their house.
Another time I was setting up on the roadside outside Gorman
[Cottonwood #1, Gorman, 2002], and I was really in a rush because I
was losing the light. A guy named Steve, in one of those monster, six-
wheeled pick up trucks swerved over from the opposite lane. I thought
he was going to run me down, but he stopped literally inches, under a
foot, from the camera and glided the window down. “That’s my favorite
tree,” were the first words out of his mouth. “I’m just crazy for Oaks.” I
say, “Don’t you mean, Cottonwood?” “Oak, one of those Live Oaks.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s a Cottonwood.” “That’s an
Oak.” I say, “No, look at that triangular (what I meant to say was:
deltoid) leaf. If that were an oak it would be sort of an oval. It would be
evergreen, like Holly.” I make the shape with my thumbs and
forefingers. “That’s an Oak,” he says. “I don’t care what you say, you’
re just wrong.” I go back to my set up. He sits there watching me. I get
to the point where I pull the slide and wait for something to happen. I
can see this isn’t making sense to him, “What are you waiting for?”
“Something to happen,” I say. “Whaddaya mean?” “I’m trying to
photograph the interaction between human beings and trees. I got the
tree part, now I’m waiting for the human doing.” “Listen, if you want
that to be a Cottonwood, then that’s alright with me, for you, that’s a
Cottonwood.” A tractor-trailer with an all chromed-side rolls by. I click
the shutter, watching my wristwatch. “That truck isn’t going to block
everything?” “Naw, with a long exposure you’ll hardly notice it was
ever there.” 30 seconds ticks off and I close the shutter. “You leave
that thing on for a long time, that’s what you mean?” “Yeah, 30
seconds.” Steve hands me his card. “Send me one of those, would
you? I’ll pay you.” I take the card. “That would be great.” He takes his
foot off the brake and creeps forward, checking traffic, clicks on his
turn signal, looks back at me, “For me, it’ll always be an Oak,” then he
pulls onto the road kicking up a cloud of dust. I re-clean the lens.
Nothing happens around me. The light is fading fast, so I expose the
second piece of film without the human component, just so I’ll have a
full tank when I go to process. I pack up and drive to the 5.
I am not so secure in my tree identification that I didn’t look up a
Cottonwood and a Live Oak when I scanned the negative. I magnified
it (if that’s the right word) until I could see a single leaf, and then I
matched the leaf as closely as I could to a picture in my encyclopedia
of trees. After prolonged internal debate, I convinced myself that the
tree in question was a Cottonwood. You’ll let me know if I was wrong.
* * *
Cottonwood #2, Canyon Country, 2002
Last couple of things: For the next phase in the marketable image of
Los Angeles, I predict we will become a city of flowering trees.
Although, I can’t get anyone at the Department of Public Works to
admit this—they like them. Most are showy, don’t have the California
Big Tree classification, and don’t require a lot of maintenance. If you’
ve ever watched one of their crews trim a Bottle Brush, say, it takes
under five minutes, and they never leave the ground. Compare that to
the hour or so it takes to climb up a hundred feet to prune a Mexican
Fan Palm. There are a lot of trees in Los Angeles. We’ll see what we
do with our trees.
Next to last thing: The images in the book are arranged as if you were
driving through the city. If you wanted, say, to take the tour of the
book, passing each of the locations where the negatives were
exposed, with the understanding that some of the tree’s are already
gone, pick up directions on my website: georgehaasphotography.com.
So that’s it. What I like to hope is that the photographs in this book so
perfectly represent the process of converting the world as it is into a
personal-point-of-view, that looking at them will provide the insight
necessary for you to penetrate your sense of limited identity, with the
result that you will be forever free to see the world as it is, free from
distortion, from misinterpretation, free from the suffering caused by
getting it wrong yet again for the umpteenth time. However, if that
doesn’t happen for you, think of the photographs in this book as a tool
to help you remember that the view of the world you believe in, may
not be the world as it is (keyword: may). Put one up on the wall. See if
you don’t catch yourself questioning everything. And, if you do, smile.
You’re very nearly free.
George Haas
Westlake District, Los Angeles
March 16, 2006
Los Angeles, I predict we will become a city of flowering trees.
Although, I can’t get anyone at the Department of Public Works to
admit this—they like them. Most are showy, don’t have the California
Big Tree classification, and don’t require a lot of maintenance. If you’
ve ever watched one of their crews trim a Bottle Brush, say, it takes
under five minutes, and they never leave the ground. Compare that to
the hour or so it takes to climb up a hundred feet to prune a Mexican
Fan Palm. There are a lot of trees in Los Angeles. We’ll see what we
do with our trees.
Next to last thing: The images in the book are arranged as if you were
driving through the city. If you wanted, say, to take the tour of the
book, passing each of the locations where the negatives were
exposed, with the understanding that some of the tree’s are already
gone, pick up directions on my website: georgehaasphotography.com.
So that’s it. What I like to hope is that the photographs in this book so
perfectly represent the process of converting the world as it is into a
personal-point-of-view, that looking at them will provide the insight
necessary for you to penetrate your sense of limited identity, with the
result that you will be forever free to see the world as it is, free from
distortion, from misinterpretation, free from the suffering caused by
getting it wrong yet again for the umpteenth time. However, if that
doesn’t happen for you, think of the photographs in this book as a tool
to help you remember that the view of the world you believe in, may
not be the world as it is (keyword: may). Put one up on the wall. See if
you don’t catch yourself questioning everything. And, if you do, smile.
You’re very nearly free.
George Haas
Westlake District, Los Angeles
March 16, 2006
