Chance Encounters: The LA Project

Douglas McCulloh wandered across the 1,287.75 square miles of urban Los Angeles, randomly photographing life in L.A. Chance Encounters: The LA Project took over six years to complete. Each day Douglas would draw a slip of paper that selected a coordinate on a 5,151 grid map of urban L.A., then drive there and spend all day photographing.

This Virtual Gallery has a selection of photographs from Chance Encounters: The LA Project. Like the project itself, random chance selects a photo, and therefore some may repeat as you click on the “Chance Encounter” button or reload the page. By clicking on the photograph a caption will be displayed.

I slipped into the guarded, gated community of the Palos Verdes Peninsula by hiking up a wooded ravine and ascending a horse trail. For a time on the private streets, the only sounds were of birds and the distant hum of muffled pool pumps. I passed a woman coaching a girl on a small bicycle with training wheels. The street ended at long gated drivers flagged with signs of armed response. “There comes that man again,” said the child as I returned, and the mother hustled her out of sight along a curved driveway. As I photographed trees and clouds reflected in a car, a woman with a small dog on a short leash gave me a wide berth.
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  thanks to Esthet