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![: From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of tennis court fence with tree shadow amidst field of green ivy.]()
Tennis Court. Los Angeles. 1987. The lush ivy in this scene belies the reality that Los Angeles is essentially a chaparral. When the water came, the scrublands gave way to an opulent and immense garden. The L.A. megacity thrives in a reverie of promise and hazy sunshine—a dream sometimes interrupted on by foreboding shadows. The tennis court was eventually demolished for the sake of urban expansion. -
![From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of sad looking carnival tent.]()
Carnival Tent. Ensenada. 2004. A tawdry air adheres to most carnival tents. The smell of cotton candy and stale popcorn clings to them. After miles of travel and years of affected frivolity, this tent looks weary and ready to collapse. -
![From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of empty courtyard in Park La Brea, Los Angeles, with empty clothesline.]()
Park La Brea Clothesline, Los Angeles 1985.
The garden townhouses in Park La Brea are fine places to live. The homes are well-kept, solid, and spacious. The greenery is immaculately pruned and mowed. This scene of one of the common laundry areas shows a rarely used clothe line.
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![From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of abandoned tennis court somewhere between Santa Monica and Venice Beach, California.]()
Between Santa Monica and Venice. Santa Monica. 1994. Somewhere in the no-man's-land between the beaches of Santa Monica and Venice West stood a meshed fence of a ruined tennis court. The site is not far from the old headquarters of the Synanon organization. These days the neighborhood is tonier than when this picture was taken. -
![Fine art photograph of closed fish market in early Sunday morning light in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.]()
Fish Market, Early Sunday Morning. Ensenada. 2004. A fish market in the bustling port of Ensenada, Baja California was caught very early on a Sunday morning, too early for all but a lone pigeon on a ledge. -
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Miracle Mile Bank. Los Angeles. 1979.
A financial institution in the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles. The juxtaposition of colors and textures drew me to this composition, the gleam of the tiles against the porous concrete, the subtle color range offset by a shock of red railing.
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The Wave. Venice Beach. 1996.
Strategically placed trashcans, each bearing a poster for a local easy rock radio station named The Wave, recede into the distance on a spread of empty beach. Looking closely at the horizon, one sees the crest of a wave breaking on the shore.
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The Aesthetics of Ma. Los Angeles. 1984.I first became aware of the sense of Ma after listening to Toru Takemitsu's music. In the West, the closest we have to the concept is the realization of the value of negative space in visual art and silence in music and film. In Asian aesthetics, this undifferentiated absence of sound and space has a deeper meaning. It is the void from which all of creation springs.
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![From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of broken windows and corrugated wall of a dilapidated factory in Los Angeles.]()
Broken Windows. Los Angeles. 1998. Beyond the societal inferences of broken windows and blight is the experience of pure textures, forms, and colors, here displayed in an impressionistic scene composed evenly of shadow and light. The random patterns of the chain linked fence, corrugated siding, and blank windows have as their counterpoint a white ball at the bottom center of the composition. The ball marks the division between shadow and light. -
![From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of yellow wall, yellow stripes on pavement, and clear blue sky—a study in blue and yellow.]()
Study in Blue and Yellow. Pasadena. 2006.
The title says it all.
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Running on Empty. The Sonoran Desert. 1999. An abandoned gas station, somewhere in the Sonoran Desert—a disturbing sight for motorists left with less than an eighth of a tank of gas in their recreation vehicle. -
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De Oude Kerk. Amsterdam. 1992.
Moss covered stones of Amsterdam’s oldest building, a church built to honor St. Nicolas, patron saint of children, thieves, and Amsterdam. The building’s neighborhood has seen better times.
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![From George Bedell’s Wasteland Series. Fine art photograph of well-kept garage and tire track on driveway in Pasadena, California.]()
Tire & Brakes Zone. Pasadena. 2005.
A clean, well-kept garage on the outskirts of Pasadena, its pavement marred by a burnt rubber of a tire track.
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A Month of Sundays
Although a few images from the Month of Sunday's series were shot in Mexico and The Netherlands, the series is mainly comprised of photos taken in California's Los Angeles Basin. They were shot between the 1980s and early 2000s. The quality of light in them varies from the hazy sunshine of Los Angeles and the stark colors of Baja California to the cloudy luminance that captivated painters of the Dutch Golden Era. Yet, their themes are the same as those in most of my work—introspection and desolation. My concern was to find significance in empty and marginal cityscapes and landscapes. This significance or meaning is seen in the formal layout of an image, a celebration of its geometric proportions, colors, and textures. And the abstract forms of these compositions are essential to the pictures' emotional content and meaning.
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