Photo & Travel Blog — One Week In L.A. — Part 1

As I just crossed the halfway mark of my LA trip, wanted to share with you my experience so far and some of the cellphone snapshots I have taken along the way.

Snapshot by author at Yoshimoto Nara’s exhibition.

“My travel and photography philosophies are the same: Don’t force anything to happen; instead, learn to show up at the right place and simply let things happen around you.”

Keith Chen

I am currently on the 4th day of my week-long L.A. trip. As the self-imposed deadline for my weekly story is fast approaching, I thought I should take a break from the trip and write a blog post about my experience so far, as well as share some of the cellphone photos I took along the way.

Let’s start with “What is my camera bag” for this trip —

I always pack light when I travel for leisure. For a week-long trip like this, I bring no more than a backpack and a hand-carry suitcase. You can imagine that the space for camera equipment is very limited in a luggage setup like this. So I only brought two camera bodies — Canon 5D2 and Leica M9, and three lenses — 16–35mmL on the Canon, and 35mm and 50mm on the Leica. And of course, I have my cellphone with me. In this story, I am only sharing the snaps from the phone because I don’t usually edit photos from my cameras when traveling.

The Flight —

Snapshots by author at Pittsburgh Airport.

We are technically still in the pandemic, so I would be lying if I tell you I don’t worry about the Covid situation; but as soon as I arrived at the airport and saw the plane I was about to board, the excitement quickly outweighed the concern. I also realized that I have never taken a serious photo when I am on the plane, so I decided to take one to document this special moment.

Day 1 — Downtown LA and Little Tokyo

Snapshot by author at Santa Monica / Vermont Metro Station.