By Colin Rich (text and video)
‘City Lights’ is the final chapter from my “Trilogy of Light” series that began a couple years ago with ‘LA Light’ and then followed up with ‘Nightfall.’ It was an nightly adventure that took me to almost every angle of Los Angeles. It was an exercise in patience. A lesson in light. An understanding of what it is to live amongst each other and to understand the system and order of a city, the seemingly complex organics that make it up and the life form that the city truly is. A visualization of sonder.
It was a daily jaunt to watch the arterial freeway systems pump car cells through its body and channel them to the capillaric avenues that are our neighborhoods and homes. It was a chance to break away from the 70mph freeway perspective and to observe the sun slip from view and watch the electric dance of nightfall begin. It was challenging. It was frustrating. Definitely dangerous at times. Sometimes it hurt. I was chased. Yelled at. Warned. But the overall context of things learned, people met, things seen, and places discovered over the past three years shaped who I am today.
I didn’t always love Los Angeles but I learned to and discovered that this city is much more than temperate weather, palm trees, pretty girls, and beaches; to me the true beauty behind the city lies hidden on the other end of a rusted fire escape to a view no one else has seen. I’m looking forward to the next chapter of my film making career where I will be concentrating on narrative and documentary films.