I'm a Lifelong artist. When my wife and I met I was just coming off of touring,  sold my van and wanted to buy something classic that I could fix up myself. So we went lookin and found Bruce. Yeah, that's what she named the red 1971 VW super beetle convertible that had hardly an interior and run out of gas with a dead battery 2 miles from the purchase.

After many years of hard work Bruce was fixed up and became our...Ferrari.

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He was cool enough for us and turned out to be a real head turner throughout SoCal.

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We enjoyed riding through L.A. and beyond seeing the beauty of the world with the topdown.

Beeping and always pulling waves with smiles from the tourists and Angeles alike combing the city's Hills, beaches and Boulevards.

I had been shooting analog photographs with my OM-1 and Leica M4 for many years even took the Hasselblad to Yosemite and finally invested in a solid digital camera in 2020.

I took it on my adventures and began to shoot pictures of the city and its infectious lifestyle including all of its massive amounts of people, mostly coming from some place else and usually with a story to tell.

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#Shotsfromthebug was created and my collection of fractions of time captured from the seat of my 71' began to fill up. Stacking up in Lightroom and it went on for months.

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March 11th of 2020. 

 

7 days before my son's 5th birthday.

The fear of the unknown enters the room and sits on the elephant, a Pandemic, The Corona -19 virus entered along with it's global takeover. 

Los Angeles prepares for a complete shutdown of all its businesses and services are toast for that moment.

The entire state is ordered to stay home with no physical contact outside the household.

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I lost my mind.

A few times. Especially during the first few days..with a bit of reluctancy that Monday I walked down to the garage, prayed to the lord and ​I pulled the cover off , put the top down and hit the streets in Bruce again with my Nikon Z7 in my lap but tears in my eyes.

I started taking photos of the city again, the disheveled city.

I drove daily from our home in Santa Monica to the studio in Hollywood.

Snapping picture after picture of L.A. and its people.

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In the one year span I took over 2000 photos.

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​These are some of the photos I took. Most of them are all from the car while driving, maybe while stopped at a light or pulling along side. Others are from adventures outside the car as well but most just from the car.

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It was hard, I would see so many different scenes as I passed that I wanted to shoot, different happenings, expressions of faces and moments of the people who wandered the streets of Los Angeles during one of the craziest periods in our lifetime. Some were commuting , some working, some expressing frustration, some confused, lost, helpless out of their minds, in pain or just scared. 

Adding to the volatility was the racial tension fueled by the current state of politics.

In my 20 years thereI had never seen L.A. like this before. 

I tried to connect with what was happening through the camera.

I engaged the people when I could, I tried to speak to them, ask how they were doing or if I could help, sometimes I could get them to open up. Sometimes I could make a difference.

Each face, scene or happening that I captured had a story. A story that was told and shared at the time or a story that related to the picture from my past.

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Here I tell the stories I have seen or heard.

I hope you enjoy my photos and stories. I appreciate your interest. 

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Thank You.

Huck Johns