Our 5 Favorite Photo Opportunities in L.A.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Or so they say. We love taking our clients to great spots in LA so they can take the best pictures for their memory books. There are a ton of great places that are photo worthy, but here are some of our favorites!
The Hollywood Sign
One of the most iconic signs in the world, The Hollywood Sign is a fantastic photo opportunity. It truly shows that you are in L.A. It is not only indicative of Los Angeles, but of the entertainment industry, which L.A. is famous for. When it was built in 1923, it was meant to be a massive outdoor ad campaign for a new housing development known as “Hollywoodland”. Constructed from metal squares, each of the 13 letters was 30 feet wide and approximately 43 feet tall and lit up at night. While the housing development eventually failed due to the Great Depression, the sign still stayed and the city eventually removed the “land” from the title to create the now famous sign, “Hollywood”. While you would have to hike up to the sign itself, there are many places to take a photo with the sign as a back drop. It is a favorite spot with our customers on our variety of tour opportunities.
Hollywood Boulevard
Before leaving Hollywood to check out the rest of Los Angeles, you should top on Hollywood Boulevard where the photo opportunities are endless. From the Walk of Fame to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and everything in between, you are going to want to take a photograph at every corner. The historic Walk of Fame runs 1.3 miles East to West on Hollywood Boulevard and of over 2,500 five pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded along the sidewalk. You can take a picture next to the star of your favorite celebrities from past and present. If you are lucky, you might even catch one of the ceremonies while you are in town as they are free to attend. You also don’t want to miss capturing some memories in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Since 1927, this theatre has been THE spot for Hollywood Premiers, has more than 2 million visitors a year, and showcases the hand and footprints of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Searching for your favorite star’s autograph – from among the 200+, multicolored blocks in the cement courtyard – is genuinely fun. Visitors can’t seem to resist comparing their shoe size to the stars’ footprints. Few can match the smallest adult footprint in the forecourt, which belongs to Jeanette MacDonald. It measures just 6 1/2 inches. Even smaller are the barefoot, childhood footprints of Shirley Temple.
Muscle Beach in Venice
At Muscle Beach in Venice you can get a little silly and start flexing your muscles like the big boys and girls do. And when we say big boys and girls, we mean body builders. Famous for it’s outdoor gym where men show off their lifting abilities, Muscle Beach started in Santa Monica and would up down in Venice. It is next to the Venice Beach Recreation Center and near the Gold’s Gym where Arnold Shwarznegger became famous. It boasts weight machines in different shapes and sizes and also boasts gymnastic, rope climbing and acrobatic bars. In addition to muscle beach you can stay a while and check out the Venice Beach Boardwalk. It’s part carnival, part shopping experience and part colorful imagination come to life. Just the bizarre nature of the Boardwalk makes it a place that you won’t soon forget. While the East side of the walk is filled with restaurants, souvenir shops and houses, condos and apartments, the other side is a site to behold with fortune tellers, performance artists , conspiracy theorists and, of course, the man who paints himself from head to toe in gold and does a perfect imitation of a robot. It is fun to people watch while sitting at one of the many eateries along the boardwalk or you can always duck inside one of the tattoo parlors to get a more permanent reminder that this place is real and not just a psychedelic dream you had once. Or you can just take a photo. Your choice.
Urban Lights at LACMA
One of our favorite places to take people for photos is the now iconic Urban Lights display outside of LACMA. Urban Lights is a large-scale assemblage sculpture by Chris Burden located on Wilshire Boulevard. Built in 2008, the installation consists of 202 restored street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s. Most of them once lit the streets of Southern California. The cast iron street lamps are of 17 styles, which vary depending on the municipality that commissioned them. They range from about 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters), are painted a uniform gray and placed, forest-like, in a near grid. The lights are solar powered from dusk to dawn. So not only are they a great place to take pictures, they are energy efficient, which is a sign of being a true Californian!
Griffith Observatory
Show your friends and loved ones the sweeping views of Los Angeles as you stand in front of one of the many sweeping views of Los Angeles that The Griffith Observatory has to offer. The most visited public observatory in the world, The Griffith Observatory hosts around 1 million people a year. It is also where James Dean gave one of his iconic performances in “Rebel Without a Cause” and Charlie’s Angels kicked into action in “Full Throttle”. Where meteors crash to earth in “Transformers” and is the welcome center of “Jurassic Park” (the original). There are so many wonderful things about the Griffith Observatory and so many spots to take epic photos – it should be a stop on anyone’s vacation itinerary!
We could go on and on about the various picture opportunities in Los Angeles that await you and your friends and family. Come visit L.A. and see all the magic this great city has to offer. View our tours at Our Tours page and give us a call at 800-549-6625 or shoot us an email at [email protected] and let us help you discover L.A.!