A Wedding, A Reunion & Los Angeles

A flight into San Jose, a series of travel shoots in Santa Cruz, a drive down to Monterey to be Best Man in a friend's wedding, a road trip down the coast to Los Angeles with a film school buddy, and naturally thousands more images captured over a week in the City of Angels - these are the bullet points from my last few weeks upon returning to California.

The funny thing about travel shooting in California, particularly Los Angeles at this point, is that I've been back and forth so many times now that you'd think I'd be bored revisiting a lot of the stereotypical spots. It's the opposite though. The familiarity is an asset. I always seem to come across something new, some random detail that fills in a blank I hadn't captured before. 

Places like the Pacific Coast Highway, Disneyland, Hollywood Boulevard and the Santa Monica Pier have actually become incredibly nostalgic now. I'm instantly reminded of other trips, friends I shared these experiences with, and professionally, some of the really cool material that's come from these random excursions and how I can experiment to build on it. 

This recent trip was really interesting because my mind was so focused on my role in my friend's wedding, that by the time the trip to L.A. started it felt like a surprise almost because I hadn't really been thinking about it. That said, this was no sit-by-the-pool vacation - we hit several major spots every day and covered a lot of ground between DTLA, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City, Burbank, Glendale, and Anaheim. The inspiration was actually rooted in a lot of discussions we used to have in film school - so what better place than L.A. to relive them.

I launched my Roadside California series at the beginning of 2015 and looking back now it's pretty amazing just how much the collection has expanded in 5 years. From redwoods and mountains to beaches and theme parks, it's really cool to see how much of California I've been able to explore as Editing Luke. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. There's still so much to see! Explore more from my California series here.