Snowy Hollywood Sign

You can live in Los Angeles your whole life and never see this. Snow behind the Hollywood sign.

It happens a handful of mornings a decade, if that. A storm clears, the cold hangs on, and the San Gabriel Mountains come back white above the city. The sign sits where it always sits, quiet on the hillside, while the last of the storm light catches the clouds and turns the peaks gold. For a few hours the most familiar skyline in the world looks like somewhere else entirely.

I watch the Los Angeles webcams every day of the year, waiting for a morning exactly like this. When the storm finally broke I reached for an 800mm lens and pulled the snow line right up against the sign, the way the eye never quite sees it on its own. By midday the lower slopes were already bare, and a day later it was gone for the year. I have shot this city for years and caught it like this once. It is the closest thing I have to a once in a lifetime frame.

For anyone who loves this city and its rare, impossible mornings. Printed and finished to gallery standard, made to anchor a living room, an office, or the wall you walk past every day. A piece of Los Angeles to bring home, or to keep the city close long after you leave.