Venice Canal, Venice California. Still water and sky, quintessential California.

Sunny and F16.

We had a few minutes to kill before our client lunch near by Venice Beach. The perfect time to take a walk through the canals. It was April of 2021 and the streets had not flooded back with people. Not planning on taking any photos, I had my little rangefinder camera around my neck for a few possible detail shots, but more importantly just to enjoy the scenery with the crew. Of course as fate would have it we walked past this scene on the way to the car.

I don't actually consider myself a landscape photographer. I enjoy capturing locations and scenes for their isolation and elegance. I'm also uninterested in taking the same photos everyone else has taken. That being said, taking a photo when the sun is at it's zenith while randomly walking the canals of Venice in LA was not on my list, and felt very unnatural.

No tripod, no big medium format camera rig, just my little range finder and whole of Sun. I'm not one for super sunny photography. New York certainly doesn't get that, and early morning or late evening light gives contrasty warm light that tends to soothe. This moment was not that.

This was... "Hey, look at that! Ugh, it's bright as hell, but the water is still and the refections in the water from the light directly above mirror one another. How serene." It would later be explained to me that the canal system in Venice is not actually a canal since the water does does not flow. Basically it's a huge pond of which explained the stillness, leading me to believe that many have taken this photo. But in the moment I was enraptured.

Serene and Saturated. This photo is one of my all time favorites of LA. As you may know from our latest KARJAKA New York magazine edition,  know we're raising funds for the fire devastation in LA with our LA Relief Prints for the Red Cross. 40% of our print sales will be going to support the families displaced by the wild fires. Peruse this print and a few dozen more of LA by clicking the shop button below, and help rebuild one of the rare gems of the world.
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Available in a variety of sizes, print formats and frames, get lost in the stillness and saturation of the Venice Canal landscape.