Overcast 35mm Street Photography in Downtown Los Angeles

 
Overcast view of high-rise buildings from Blue Ribbon Garden in Downtown Los Angeles
 

For this street photography morning session, I challenged myself to only use one lens: the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN ART prime lens for the Sony E-Mount.

I often alternate between the Sigma 35mm and 85mm prime lenses in my camera bag. Although it’s beneficial to have a variety of lenses available to choose from for street photography, consistently changing lenses can cause you to miss moments that you can’t replicate. Additionally, sticking to one focal length can motivate you to think more carefully about your composition and find creative ways to capture an image that you might not normally think of.

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing images from this street photography session in Downtown Los Angeles, as well as my thought process on how I achieved certain compositions. These photos were taken with the Sony a7R III camera body and edited in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

 

Composition with the 35mm lens

I usually start each street photography session in Downtown Los Angeles taking a wide angle photo from one of the many overpasses you’ll find in downtown. Even though I don’t think there’s anything necessarily special about the composition in the photo, I enjoy the view of cars driving by with the mix of high-rise buildings and trees in the background. 

Even though it’s very small in the photo, I like the pop of yellow from one of the cars driving along the highway.

 
Cars driving along a busy highway in Downtown Los Angeles with tall buildings in the background on an overcast morning
 
 

Certain overpasses will have a very small pedestrian path to walk on. This is where a wide angle like the 35mm lens comes in handy. I can capture a lot of the scene with a wider angle lens compared to an 85mm lens.

Another benefit of having the 35mm lens in this scene is I was able to frame the high-rise buildings between the rail gaps and capture cars driving by with a portrait orientation. I like the red color of the car that adds color to what is otherwise a pretty muted scene with white and grey cars around it.

High-rise buildings framed by the railings from a pedestrian walkway in Downtwon Los Angeles
A red car drives alongthe highway around white and grey cars
 

As wide as the 35mm lens is, it can be difficult to capture some of the incredibly tall buildings in Downtown LA. I captured this photo by squatting on the ground and pointing my lens as high as I could while still being able to look at the screen (the Sony a7R III doesn’t have a screen that flips outward). If I had used my 24-70mm f/2.8 Sony lens, I probably would have just gone at 24mm and had an easier time photographing the subject.

Even with a 35mm lens, the top of the building doesn’t even reach the frame. I chose to focus on the traffic light rather than the building itself, but I think getting the top of the building would have made the photo look a bit more clean from a composition standpoint.

 
A traffic light in front of a tall building in Downtown Los Angeles during an overcast morning
 

35mm is a good focal length to capture the double yellow lines on a road, which can act as great leading lines to a subject. Unfortunately, it was pretty quiet this morning so there weren’t many people or cars to act as the subject for these frames. But overall, I’m still happy with the composition of these photos.

 
Double yellow lines on the road leading toward the One Wilshire building in Downtown Los Angeles
Prominent double yellow lines that lead towards a tall blue glass building
 
 
 
 
 

I spotted a few orange trucks driving by and tried to capture a photo from the other side of the street. I wanted to try and get the truck centered in front of the Dublin restaurant, but I knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough and there were only a few passing by, so I quickly took the photo from where I was standing.

Overall, I don’t think it’s a bad photo and I like the double lines on the road almost matching the color of the truck and fire hydrant. But I think the 35mm was a good choice for this kind of photo. If I had switched over to my 85mm lens, I’m not sure if I would have gotten the entire truck in frame.

 
Orange truck driving by beauiful ancient arhictectural building in Downtown Los Angeles
 

One of my go-to spots for street photography in Downtown Los Angeles is the metro station. The metro trains usually come around pretty consistently so you don’t have to wait very long to get a photo with a train in the photo.

The trains will also slow down as they’re arriving at the stop so I didn’t have to bump up my shutter speed incredibly high to capture it in motion. In addition to the train itself, I also captured photos of the ticket station and stop lights.

When I first started street photography, I would only try to capture wide angle photos that showed the high-rise buildings. But over the years, I’ve closed on certain details that would usually appear insignificant and unnoticeable in a wide-angle photo. I think these photos would have been better captured with the 85mm lens and I felt tempted to switch lenses, but I stuck with the 35mm.

 
Yellow Metro train in Downtown Los Angeles stopping at the Metro station
 
 
Red train light blinking that reflects on the grey Metro train
Ticket station for Metro train in Downtown Los Angeles
 
 

Finding Colors in Street Photography

As I left the train station, I spotted a red Wrong Way sign in front of green trees - I like the look of the complementary colors. As I was just about to leave, I saw a red Starline Hollywood sightseeing bus and red car stop right under the Wrong Way sign. Although the bus has a lot of colors on its exterior, the red was the most dominant, so I managed to get another photo before I moved on.

 
Red Wrong Way Do Not Enter sign perched in front of green trees in Downtown Los Angeles
 
 
red city sightseeing Starline bus stopped under a Red Wrong Way sign in front of green trees
 
 
 

The small Quench juice bar placed in the middle of these high-rise buildings has a very bright pop of yellow that makes it stand out. Normally I would have taken the photo with a wider angle (especially on a 35mm lens), but I ended up going in for a close-up shot. I mainly wanted to highlight the bright colors of the roof, umbrella, and chairs of the juice bar.

Again, I think the photo would have been more interesting if there were people walking by. Given the fact that it started to rain a bit later, I think it would have been really nice to catch someone walking by with an umbrella placed in the center. But I’m still satisfied with the final result.

 
Yellow Quench juice bar store with a yellow umbrella and yellwo plastic chairs in front of the store
 

Arriving at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, I saw that the Blue Ribbon Garden patio was open. This is one of my favorite sunset spots in all of Los Angeles because of the beautiful view of the high-rise buildings. Unfortunately because of the overcast weather, there weren’t any streaks of light to photograph.

But I spotted a tree with pink flowers that stood out from the rest of the garden. I think the photo would have been nicer if the sky was clearer, but I like the pop of the pink color in the photo.

 
A tree with pink flowers standing at the Blue Ribbon Garden patio in Downtown Los Angeles
 

Nearly finishing this street photography session, I started to walk toward the Gloria Molina Grand Park. A small red cart parked by a building caught my attention and I captured some photos of the vehicle.

For one of the photos, I tried to use the green leaves as foreground and as a contrast to the muted red color of the cart. I think it would have been nice to have the cart more centered so that the leaves would have been directly in front of the cart.

But I think one of the best (and challenging) things about street photography is that you won’t always have control of where things are placed, so you’re capturing real moments.

 
Small red cart parked in front of the Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles
 

Lastly, I walked by a restaurant that had blue doors which really stood out to me. I have walked by the restaurant a few times incidentally, but the color had just now really caught my attention (maybe it was because of the moody weather which motivated me to find any pop of color), but I thought the color would make for a nice photo.

 
Brasserie with blue doors behind a green plant in Downtown Los Angeles
 
 

Final Words

This street photography session wasn’t about taking dynamic and dramatic photos, but it was just a relaxing morning walk around the city. I enjoyed capturing what first caught my eye with the challenge of only using one prime lens.

Although my preferred street photography weather conditions would be partly cloudy, I think it’s important to try and go out regardless of the weather because it can push your creative limits and allow you to look at compositions differently.

I have taken photos around Downtown Los Angeles for years, and even walking along the same paths, I discovered new colors that caught my attention. 

Looking back at the photos, I wish I had captured more photos of people in action, but that presents another challenge of the 35mm lens (especially when there aren’t that many people walking around in the first place on a Saturday morning). There were a few times where the 85mm lens would have been a good choice, but the 35mm was great at capturing urban landscapes, high-rise buildings, and a few detailed street shots that I would have used another lens for.

In the future, I’ll try to do more challenges with using a certain lens, or going into a session truly testing out camera equipment to see if I’m able to bring creativity into compositions and lighting scenarios.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and as always, thank you as always for reading. Until next time.

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