Los Angeles photo expo is worth a visit

Woman by the Pool (Beverly Hills Hotel, 1975) by Anthony Friedkin; copyright Anthony Friedkin

The 21st annual international Los Angeles photographic art expo continues through Monday at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The show features about 40 exhibitors as well as speakers and discussions.

To take his iconic Woman by the Pool (Beverly Hills Hotel, 1975), photographer Anthony Friedkin says he dressed up like a tennis pro so that he would blend into the “Hollywood thing – which is all about costume.”

Clad in white and carrying a racket, he saw his opportunity as soon as he got to the pool. “I believe photographers have a fate, a destiny, like all artists do. And much of this has to do with being in the right place at the right time. Regardless of the fact we work our whole lives to be there, at that precise moment in time, to get that extraordinary photograph, to visualize it and frame it artistically, there’s a certain amount of existential luck that has to come into play. And I felt it the day that I made that photograph.”

The Santa Monica Civic Center is at 1855 Main St., 90401. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and Monday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. General admission is $20, with discounts available.

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