About Just Above Sunset Photography

Just Above Sunset Photography is a spin-off of the weekly web magazine Just Above Sunset that ran from May 26, 2003 through March 11, 2007. That weekly ceased publication and was replaced by a newer site, now damaged, and a "continuously updated" political commentary site, with a new format – the blog Just Above Sunset Commentary. The previous photography is accessible at the new archives page.

This site is devoted to photography alone, and over the next months the best of the photography from the previous sites will be moved here, with links to specific previous collections and galleries over the years – from a little way up in the Hollywood Hills, just east of Laurel Canyon. That's just above Sunset Boulevard, thus the name. Since 2003 efforts here have generated a massive portfolio of local photography - everything from architectural studies to what seems to be "real life" here in Hollywood, and Hollywood history, to the beaches, to the array of odd Los Angeles neighborhoods, to nature photography with a special emphasis on local botanicals. And along with extensive architecture studies - from Hollywood in the Art Deco Golden Age to the severely modern - there are all the strange cars out here. And there are those special events, like the Rose Parade and various premiers at the Chinese Theater. And there was that ride in the Goodyear Blimp and in a restored World War II bomber. For a photographer out here, this is a target-rich environment.

Technical Note:

After November 1, 2018, the camera used here is a Nikon D750, with Nikon's AF-S DX 18-105 mm ED VR lens, unless noted. Earlier the cameras were a Nikon 7100 and a Nikon D200 – using the AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5 ED or the AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto lens. The extreme high-resolution originals were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software.

This site, and the previous sites, is the work of Alan Pavlik – a former systems manager for a large California-based HMO, and a former senior systems manager for Northrop, Hughes-Raytheon, Computer Sciences Corporation, Perot Systems and other such organizations. One position was managing the financial and payroll systems for a large hospital chain. And somewhere in there was a two-year stint in Canada running the systems shop at a General Motors locomotive factory - in London, Ontario. Think large-scale HR, payroll, financial and manufacturing systems. But your photographer has a graduate degree in Eighteenth-Century British Literature from Duke University where he was a National Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and taught English and music in upstate New York in the seventies. In the early eighties he moved to California and left teaching... and currently resides in Hollywood, California, one block north of the Sunset Strip. And now it's photography. Go figure.