Yesterday, I stumbled upon some photos I took while in Los Angeles. I spent ten days there checking out the sites and sounds but mainly to seek out the cool graffiti that proliferates the back alleys and abandoned train stations across the city.

I really appreciate the boldness of the colors and the amazingly creative type treatments these artists use when creating their pieces. If you kick around this stuff long enough, you can start to see the stylistic tendencies of each artist emerge, allowing you to immediately identify their work.

So, here’s a brief collection of some international graffiti artists that have work in L.A. and some unnamed local talent that may not be household names but, in my opinion, deserve props.

Daim is a graffiti artist/Graphic Designer from from Lueneburg (near Hamburg / Germany). He’s easily one of the most talented urban artists to grab a paint can. What else can I say about his work…the color, the 3-D effect, the type treatment, it’s all there for the taking. Beautifully crafted, meticulous art.

If you want to see more of Daim’s work, check out his website here.

This wall was inspired in opposition to Proposition 21, the Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act. It was a ballot initiative that, when passed, sent California’s youthful offenders from the juvenile system to the punishment-oriented adult-justice system.

Its impact is especially sharp in Los Angeles County, source of nearly a third of the state’s juvenile offenders.

SEAK has a knack for creating these visually riveting biomorphic compositions based on space, aliens and technology themes. Super creative stuff.

I couldn’t dig up much information on his career. He trashed his website in 2008 but through the genius of the Way Back Machine I was able to dig up his last viewable version here.

These are self-prescribed (and rather humorous) acronyms for SEAK’s name:

Superficial Exposure Alarms Kindergarten
Self Educated Autistic Knave
Surprisingly Easy Access to Knowledge
Surely Equals Any Kind
Style Evolution At Knifepoint

I shot these at an abandoned train station in East L.A.. I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous being there, but it was worth it to see some cool old-school graffiti.

The exterior walls of this station had been sprayed time and time again for decades. Thinking that the paint layers would probably show like rings in a tree when it’s cut, I took my knife and sliced down to the original wall. I counted 50 layers of visible paint.

Think back to when you were a kid and you’d watch the beginning of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Remember how the camera would glide in from the tree tops and give you a birds-eye view of that idealized little town where Mr. Rogers lived? Tilt Shift photography is similar in that you can manipulate still photos (and movies) to essentially achieve the same effect. All you needed is a camera and a image editing program and you can be well on your way to creating some uniquely fun images.

I first heard rumblings of tilt shift photography on flickr. They have a Tilt Shift Group Pool dedicated to miniature fakes. It’s definitely worth a look so check it out. Everyone is welcome to upload one of their creations for public consumption. All you have to do is join.

So, what is tilt shift? It refers to the type of lens that allows the photographer to focus on a specific area of a photo and then shift (blur) everything around it to create the illusion of a miniaturized world.

Most faked tilt shift photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature. The technique is particularly effective on buildings, cars, trains and people. To achieve the angle I wanted for my first tilt shift photo shoot, I took the elevator up to the 20th floor of Skyscape, which overlooks the NW side of the city and provides some pretty decent views.

In addition to focus manipulation, the tilt shift photography effect is improved by increasing color saturation and contrast, to simulate the bright paint often found on scale models.

A cool benefit of discovering a new photo technique is that you can now dig up all your old vacation photos and repurpose them. Here are a few from my rafting trip down the Grand Canyon last June.