The Venice Canals

On October 1, I participated in Scott Kelby’s fourth annual Worldwide Photowalk, joining a group that was meeting at the canals in Venice, California. It was fascinating to me because I had only glimpsed the Grand Canal before, never having walked anywhere near them, and I thought I could explore my city a little better and take pictures — two of my favorite things to do.

It turns out, the Venice canals were commissioned by the city’s founder Abbot Kinney beginning in 1904 and originally consisted of 16 miles of waterways! Venice became part of Los Angeles in 1925 and the city decided, sadly, that the canals and cars were not a good match and proceeded to fill in most of the water. What’s left of these waterways — six remain — has become one of the most prime pieces of real estate in L.A. with houses listed in the neighborhood upwards of $1 million. I can see why, it’s so quaint and charming. At 8 in the morning, the water was like glass, broken only by a few mallards coasting along the surface and the oars of a rowboat powered by an old woman.

So these images were taken along the Grand Canal, mostly. The walk continued on to Venice Beach with its pier and boardwalk consisting of its renowned weirdness (I think the whole area smells like poo, piss, incense and ganja) but right at Washington Avenue, I ran into a couple of friends of mine and we ducked in to a little cafe for breakfast. Now that was a great morning!

These images were processed with Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 Film Noir 1 preset.

And I was inspired to do the PhotoWalk when I remembered that my friend and photographer extraordinaire Doris Rudd took part in it last year from her home in North Carolina. I didn’t want to miss out on the fun this year! Check out her blog, she’s wonderful.

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