All good things...

...must come to an end; and so it was, that my whirlwind trip to LA finished.

but first let's look at some photos from the last few days in town

Friday was all about finding some interesting hills, followed by hanging-out at the beach.

off the beaten-track... (well, up some guys driveway)





Kira (dutch steadi-op) celebrates our "illegal" hiking. About 5 minutes later, a car stopped behind the rental, and a man cautiously got out... he was polite, but quite perturbed = what were we doing here!?!

Time to turn on the Aussie (and Dutch) accents, and plead ignorance (we truthfully didn't see any signs or gates preventing access).

Seems that the area where we'd stopped is frequently used by local youths as a drinking hang-out, and by less scrupulous persons as a dumping ground (for what? we didn't ask)

Raptor/eagle/bird





awesome location...





...no, seriously - this place rocks.





time to head back to the beach and chill.





Venice Beach Markets. Completely unique in this world.





LAPD do the coast guard-ing now?





Venice beach skate-park





...with skaters that can actually...y'know... skate!





most awesome street performer/personality = guitar wielding osama-bin-blader





Scra-p-redator





Kira gets a Henna Tattoo...





...with the crest? of Amsterdam





Dutch-pride...





Much more pleasant sunset





seriously cool sunsets...





Possibly the Best photo of the entire trip...


Said goodbye to my new friends, and packed my bags, 'twas time to go home

on my way to the airport, thought I'd stop in at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Disney Music Hall - one was a complete waste of money, the other - a photographic gift...





Guess which one this is...





such fun angles...

very cool.





Best sculpture I found in LA (just outside the overpriced and over-rated MOCA)... very shiny.





downtown buildings





I saw a film shoot, and thought about gate-crashing - turned out to be a car TVC that didn't have a sound team on-board, plus it seemed to be taking forever to set up... So I let them be, and took more photos of buildings.





One of the conditions for my car hire was pre-paid fuel. No need to fill-up on the way to drop-off, but a VERY nervous final drive = I was running late for my flight, and REALLY didn't want to run out of gas. as you can see - I was really pushing the envelope here.





view from my return seat

after 17hrs of flight (and the weird date line crossing), Sunday the 8th of April no longer exists in my personal timescale... hope I didn't miss anything important.





the "Aussie" film selections... (2 out of 5 'aint too-bad)

Well, that's my LA odyssey in four short posts (although, with the two leading up to, and two re-caps for, the workshop; I guess it's really eight).

...Time to let the cat out of the bag (always been confused by the popularity of that particular phrase).

I'm on a plane in less than 30 hrs, headed back to the promised land of touque-wearing, hockey-lovin, maple-syrup-eating, Canucks...

That's right - after a month of intense discussions, permits, and visa applications - I'm returning to Halifax as Boom Operator on the second season of Mr D.

The flight from Brisbane-Sydney-Vancouver-Toronto-Halifax will take around 30 hours, but I'll only move 13hrs forward... man I love international travel.

Our 52 day shoot starts on Tuesday, so we should be wrapping up around the beginning of September.

Expect photos.

all the best,

Ian