Helms Bakery Noir

The famous Helms Bakery sign on Venice Blvd in Los Angeles.
The Helms Bakery is now defunct and the building serves as a group of home furnishing stores and outlets.
The Helmsman statue was also moved to Marina Del Rey's Burton Chase Park. The Helmsman also became the part of the logo for the local beach cities paper, The Argonaut. The logo was removed from the paper a couple years back, but is still used for their online edition.

Photo by Ted Soqui © 2017

Helms Olympic Bread.

Take A Knee

Demonstrators hold a "take a knee" and hold a "die in" at Donald Trump's star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. The "die in" was a protest against war with North Korea and the "take a knee" was in support of athletes right to free speech.

Photos by Ted Soqui © 2017

Dead roach on Donald Trump star.

Taking a knee.

Die in.

Happy Birthday Tommy

Happy Birthday to Los Angeles Dodger Great, Tommy Lasorda.
He celebrated his 90th birthday on the same day as the Dodgers win their NL West divisional title for the fifth strait year.
Congratulations to both Tommy and the Dodgers.

Took this image of Tommy during practice at Dodger stadium back in 1994.
He definitely had some good speed on those pitches.

Photo by Ted Soqui © 1994

Throwing some heat.

México '85

32 years ago on this date, I was on a plane to cover a giant earthquake near México City. Had a bag full of black and white film and two Nikon film cameras.
Was amazing to watch and photograph people put their lives together after such a terrible earthquake.
Photographed this woman carrying some wood for fuel to cook with. Most of the homes in her colonia were made of adobe, they crumbled and were destroyed in the quake.

Sadly another catastrophic quake struck on the same date 32 years later.

Photo by Ted Soqui © 1985

'85 quake.

LA Weekly Cover

An image I photographed of a street vender is featured on the cover of LA Weekly. 

The story is about how street vending is not legal in Los Angeles, one of the largest cities in the world that does not allow street vending. 

All that may change with new city regulations and licensing laws in the works. 

In the meantime, street vendors like the Guatemalan woman in the photo, will continued to be ticketed, harassed,  and have their possessions confiscated by law enforcement.

Photo by Ted Soqui for the LA Weekly © 2017

Vending in LA.

Thousands March in Support of DACA

Thousands of "Dreamers" and supporters of the DACA act march through downtown Los Angeles. The Trump administration rescinded the DACA act earlier in the day leaving 800,000 recipients in limbo until congress decides what to do with their status.
The march started at Olvera Street and ended at LA City Hall.

Photo by Ted Soqui © 2017

Marchers

Pro DACA March in Los Angeles

Hundreds of pro-DACA supporters and "Dreamers" marched to keep the DACA program in place. Trump is planning to overturn and end the act by executive order within six months. There are approximately 800,000 recipients of the DACA program, many of them living in the Los Angeles area, which allows them to work, serve in the military,  and go to school legally without fear of deportation.
LA Weekly slideshow click here.

Photos by Ted Soqui © 2017

March. 

Dreamers.

Cesar.

Dreamers.

Not the only one.

Twilight Fire Fighting Ops @ La Tuna Fire

As day turns in to night, the water dropping helicopters of LA City, LA County, and Erickson continue in to the evening. New night time flying technology has extended the flight hours of fire fighting capabilities in to night. It's amazing to watch these giant choppers fly and drop water at night on the La Tuna fire, which is officially the largest fire in LA City history.

Photos by Ted Soqui © 2017

Erickson Air-Crane flying over the moon.

Fire fighter spotting water drops in Sun Valley.

Night drop.

LA County Fire Hawk.

Erickson Air-Crane doing a night drop.

Night burn.