Photo Safari: Melrose Art District (Plus: How to Make/Use PS Layer Masks)

A few weeks ago, before the whole COVID-19 crisis took hold in LA, I went on a photo-walk through the Melrose Art District. The Art District can be found on Melrose Boulevard, between La Brea and Fairfax.

Spigot on a graffiti wall

What I Learned

• Try different angles
• A new angle creates a new perspective, which can create a completely new shot
• It can be hard to tell the best angle of a subject without experimentation
• Try high-contrast shots
• High-contrast light
• High-contrast colors
• High-contrast textures
• High-contrast shapes
• Keep taking photos, even if you're tired or don't think they'll come out well
• How to use layer masks in Photoshop to adjust specific areas of a photo
• Create new Adjustment Layer
• Make adjustment
• Click the Layer Mask icon at the top of the fly-out
• Click the Invert button (the mask thumbnail in the Adjust Layer palette will turn black)
• Use the Brush to paint white onto the layer in order to let the adjustment show through

Kit

• Nikon D7200
• Nikkor af 20mm f/2.8 (w/UV filter)

Story

I was extraordinarily tired the morning of the photo-walk, which was scheduled for the ungodly hour of 9AM. The night before, I'd stayed up watching telly for just a little too long. At 7AM, my alarm went off, and I spent the next 30 minutes arguing with myself about getting out of bed. In the end, I decided that I would come home from the photo-walk and take a nap.

I extricated myself from the covers and collected up my camera gear. I decided to go extremely light on the kit, just the camera body and my new-to-me 20mm lens. I wanted to try out 20mm, and I figured I'd need a fairly wide-angle lens to capture any panoramic graffiti I found anyway. Even though the meet-up spot was walking distance (about 2 miles away), I'd wasted too much time in bed and took a Lyft to the Starbucks on Melrose and Stanley.

Gate in monochrome

I got to the coffee shop early and ordered an Earl Grey tea. I hoped it would be easy to spot members of the Meet-Up group by their cameras or gear, but it was someone else who spotted me. A man named Barry got behind me in the queue, nodded at my camera, and asked if I was part of the photo-walk. I said, "Yes," and we got to chatting. More people came, and we took over the communal table in the center of the shop.

As more people came, a young woman about my age sat down next to me. Her name is Rajani, and we started chatting as other people showed up. She was new to LA and was looking for a photography partner who knew the area, so we decided to connect later to take some nifty shots.

In the meantime, a bunch more people had come, and it was going on 9:15, so the group leader, Salvador, took us outside and debriefed us about our route. Our walk was down the alleys parallel Melrose toward La Brea, cross at Poinsettia(?), and take the back alleys back up toward Fairfax.

Texture study

In spite of the tea, I was still sluggish physically and mentally. But I was determined to get in some photography practice, and every shot counts. I raised my camera at things that I'd usually pass by and passed by things I'd normally shoot. I lagged behind the group, which was at least 20 strong, trying to get unique shots--things that the others weren't shooting.

For whatever reason, I stayed in close rather than take grand panoramas--contrary to my original intent--trying to abstract the light and colors over different textures. But sometimes, there were subjects that really demanded to be photographed on their own.

Someone had a completely customized Rolls Royce parked behind one of the shops

There were a few shots that I tried to get but couldn't. There was a nice little puddle in a handicapped-reserved parking spot that reflected graffiti on the wall, but a massive SUV started driving into it before I could get to it. Most vexing, the SUV didn't have a DP tag or license plate, and I was irritated enough that I considered calling cops on them because stealing handicapped parking is pretty low.

Along the route back up to the coffee shop, the group ran into a graffiti artist who was actively spraying. He was amenable to answering questions, but it was also clear that he wanted to get on with his work. To his luck, another graffiti artist/enthusiast(?) was walking back with groceries and began telling everyone the history of graffiti and street art in the Melrose Art District.

Street art

Apparently, much of the graffiti was had been overtaken by street art commissioned by local businesses, steadily increasing in degree for the last 5 years. The graffiti enthusiast found this quite an affront to graffiti art by bland commercial enterprises and asserted that graffiti is a "truer" expression of art. As the graffiti enthusiast began to wax political about gentrification, I slipped away to take more shots, knowing that finishing the photo-walk would get me to my bed a little sooner.

Self portrait?

I got back to the Starbucks and started to head back. The photo-walk group had dissipated as people returned to their cars before the 2-hour parking limits drew nearer to ending. I walked down Melrose toward La Brea, snapping shots of passerby every once in a while. Apparently the street photography bug is hard to kick. None of the shots came out especially well, but it was still a good exercise given I already had my camera on me and I had about 40 minutes of walking ahead of me.

When I got home, I didn't even put my camera away in its bag; I just set it on my dining room table and went to bed.

I may not have been terribly enthusiastic on the day of the photo-walk, but I was pretty stoked to get started on the post-processing. I knew I had gotten a handful of good shots, some of which required I learn how to use Layer Masks in Photoshop. It was a skill I knew I would need down the road, so I saw this as a good chance to figure it out.

I read a few articles on established photography blogs on how to use Layer Masks but nothing about how to apply Layer Masks. The one article that got close to explaining how to apply Layer Masks was too vague, and, even after following the instructions to the T, I couldn't get it to work. So I picked up a Photoshop mook ("magazine"+"book"= mook) from the bookseller. While that didn't work either (the mook's instruction didn't explain how to "paint in" the adjusted layer, just how to select a single color to mask), the mook did have a lot of useful information and addressed a lot of my other questions/issues.

I eventually went to YouTube, where a very good tutorial demonstrated everything. I tried it myself and had no problem.

Finally, I was able to lighten/dark/color specific areas, which is great because there are usually areas underexposed, and I need to bring those up without blowing out the whites in other areas of the image. I'm pretty excited with this new skill, so I'll be experimenting a lot.