Light on the 405

Last Saturday night I was driving home from Hollywood on the 405, it was unusually foggy, so much so that you could not see the cars in front of or next to you. Obviously since I was driving, no pictures were taken. The fog and the city lights made for a very interesting moody and eerie light scape. I was most drawn to the atmosphere that was created by the combination of occasional sharp lights and the blur from the mist. You got a sense of being lifted, and above the ground. There was a neat contrast between feeling unsettled because you could not cleary see the light sources in the distance but also the feeling of being encapsulated by soft warm milky light.

There is a stretch of freeway, I think it is right outside of Long Beach, that actually has streetlights lining the center divide. It was here that I was most captivated by the light. The strong downlight from the streetlights was softened by the fog. Because the air was so thick the lights appeared to be floating. Because the lights were in an unexpected place (they aren't typical for freeways, at least not where I come from) you are totally caught off guard, and transported to somewhere new and different. The addition of the fog totally transformed a very familiar environment into something else, and I really liked that. It made me stop and notice.