An iconic spot in downtown Los Angeles is the Griffith Observatory. Not only were a few awesome movies filmed at this location (one of which is my favorite: A Rebel Without A Cause) but there are also great views of the city and you can even see the Hollywood sign from here. This shot was no easy task to get on this occasion though. This was taken before I had my motorcycle in California, so I was still using public transportation. I had planned on going to this spot and tried to look up some bus routes that went here but couldn’t only find some that came close; there were none that went the whole way. I figured I could find my way once I got out here since I have done this before so I got my things and took off. When I got to the closest bus stop I got of and began looking for signs pointing me in the right direction. At this time it was mid-afternoon and the sun still had a little bit of time before it would set so I wasn’t worried. I found a road I thought to be the right one leading up and I ended up asking a few cops to confirm this. They gave me a funny look after I said I was walking up and confirmed my assumptions on it being the right road. They finished by saying I might want to take a taxi but I waved them off knowing that I had hiked pretty far in the past for shots. With that said, this was a long way up. I figured it would be a straight path but it curves all around the hillside all the way to the top. By the time I had actually reached the top I was covered in sweat and it was nearing sunset. I had looked around for some good vantage points and settled on this one for where I wanted a night shot at. I set up my tripod and waited until the time was right then snapped away. I processed this image in Photoshop CS5 with some exposure masking to correct certain areas.
