Sony's First Photo Essays on L.A. River
When we learned that Sony would be sending a world class photographer to capture the LA River as an addition to their 9- month social documentary #FutureofCities we were excited. Carolyn Drake is that photographer and has signed on to do two photo essays about the LA River. Check out her first body of work capturing landscape documentary images shot along the 51-mile channel.
The Army Corp of Engineers carried out an ambitious plan to encase the Los Angeles River in concrete after catastrophic floods in the 1930's led to calls for flood control. Except for a few places where the muddy bottom was impossible to replace, the river was turned into a concrete drainage channel. The ecology of the river disappeared, making room for development and a flood-free city.