I love navigating by landmarks. Too often we reduce the city into a series of abstract driving directions, a mathematical method of wayfinding that for me just isn't as pleasurable or familiar as (say) telling a friend to head toward the Jensen's building to meet me at Pescado Mojado. Los Angeles has its landmarks to be sure, but they can sometimes feel few, far between, and robbed of thunder + context by the oceans of asphalt separating them. In the photo above, Jensen's feels like an island, Pescado Mojado just another storefront. But when narrowed, the two buildings become related--a phenomenon called proximity in design parlance, where the viewer assigns more meaning as two objects move nearer to one another. These two buildings, when smooshed closer together, transform into a gateway landmark: a clear entranceway into all that Echo Park has to offer. See it narrowed!
Diptych prints available