Visiting old haunts on my birthday, I rode my bicycle on a gorgeous afternoon that passes for winter in Los Angeles style. I pedaled up into the Santa Monica Mountains, on streets I hadn't visited in quite a while. On my return to the flatlands, I looked back to view some of the iconic images of the City of Angels: palm trees, red-tiled roofs, a skyscraper, and the near-mythic Hollywood Sign. The sign sits atop Mt. Lee, in the Santa Monica Mountains. A portion of the more distant and more massive San Gabriel Mountains rises, like a leviathan, in the background.

Everything in this photograph, with the help of my camera's telephoto setting, has been compressed into what appears to be a narrow, almost two-dimensional plane. Distances, though, range from several feet to many miles. The building, for example, is probably a half mile from the homes that appear to sit directly under it's base.