Day 37

37/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

I went down to LA yesterday to hang out with the always amazing Tony Ung. We spent the evening shooting a commercial for a contest, and part of it took place in a subway. Did you know we have a subway in LA? Because I didn't. I have never been on a subway before, and no one has ever tried to steal my camera before, so it was quite the experience.
 
You would think security on these things would be tight, but it was quite the opposite. They operate on the honor system, which is pretty cool. We walked on and waited in the station for our train to come, and I took some time to explore. Every station was designed by a different artist, and they are all pretty cool. The one above was film themed, which explains the giant film strip in the background. They also had thousands of 35mm film reels that covered the ceiling which was pretty impressive. 

We hopped on the train and, using my new camera, we started to shoot the scene for our commercial. We shot for a solid 20 minutes on the train, and the only thing anyone said to us was "good luck with your school project" as she exited. Then we started shooting in the station, and again, no one bothered us. No permits necessary. There was one instance, though, where a guy came up and started talking to me about my camera. It was attached to my tripod, and he was a sketchy character who was making small talk. He asked to see some of my pictures, so I showed him. Then he asked if the camera came off the tripod, and I'm pretty sure he was going to pull a grab-n-go with my camera, so I said "nope" and walked away. I wonder how many people that actually works on?


Anyway, mid-shoot, as Tony was explaining the scene to our actors, I saw this old man walking along the platform. It was about 10:30 at night, and he looked dead tired. He just kept his head down and went about his business. Tony was in my way, so I started yelling at him to move, and right as his ass cleared my frame, I got this shot off. All natural light, all natural situation and I dig it.