26 Amir Ebrahimi recaps documenting DTLA 2020

Documenting 2020: A Personal Reflection on Los Angeles and Life

This solo episode explores Amir Ebrahimi’s deeply personal journey through 2020, a year marked by tragedy, chaos, and profound change. Through vivid storytelling, Amir shares his experiences documenting downtown LA’s transformation amidst societal upheaval and his own evolving life as a new father.

Main Topics Covered:

• The emotional impact of Kobe Bryant's passing and its influence on Amir’s perspective

• The intersection of personal life milestones and urban chaos during COVID-19

• Documenting the racial protests and chaos in downtown LA in 2020

• The physical and emotional toll of street unrest and Amir’s resilience

• Reflections on city decay, potential, and future aspirations for downtown LA

• The significance of creating a photo book and documentary to preserve this historic moment

Key Insights:

• Amir’s last normal day with his father coincided with Kobe Bryant's death, sparking a year of intense documentation

• The emotional significance of Kobe and Gigi Bryant’s tragic loss for Los Angeles

• The challenge of navigating fatherhood and cultural differences amidst societal trauma

• The personal connection Amir felt with downtown LA’s community and history

• The chaos of the 2020 protests captured through Amir’s lens, highlighting destruction and resilience

• The bittersweet realization that documenting chaos is also documenting the end and beginning of eras

• The role of social media in sharing real-time history and Amir’s intent to present a non-political, honest account

• The hope to create a visual and narrative legacy of downtown LA’s tumultuous year

Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro: Setting the scene for a year of personal and urban upheaval
02:12 - Reflection on 2019 ending with uncertainty and upcoming fatherhood
03:52 - Love for downtown LA and its blend of New York and California
05:03 - Fear and uncertainty raising a daughter in a chaotic city
06:39 - Family struggles: estranged relationship with his father and their reconciliation
08:26 - Kobe Bryant’s influence on Amir’s perception of fatherhood and life
10:21 - The shocking news of Kobe's death and its emotional impact
11:53 - Amir’s experiences working with Kobe Bryant and the deeper respect for his legacy
13:27 - Downtown LA becoming a memorial after Kobe’s passing
14:35 - Collective mourning in LA akin to 9/11’s impact on New York
15:36 - The profound loss of Kobe and Gigi, and its effect on the city
16:53 - The evolution of Amir’s documentation from the 9/11 aftermath to 2020 protests
18:22 - The impact of COVID shutting down the NBA and Amir’s switch to documenting the city’s empty streets
19:49 - Life in quarantine, pregnancy, and the comfort of home amid chaos
22:54 - Birth of his daughter Sophia on May 25, 2020, coinciding with George Floyd’s death
25:46 - The societal unrest reflected in daily life and Amir’s cautious documentation
28:45 - Downtown LA riot chaos on May 31, 2020, and Amir’s experience capturing the unrest
33:10 - The physical impact of riot-related injuries and reflections on risking safety to document history
34:39 - Living through and documenting a "war zone" in downtown LA
36:22 - Recognizing the importance of documenting history and the chaos’s emotional toll
37:38 - The sadness of a dying city and destroyed dreams amid continued chaos
42:55 - Peaceful moments and celebrations, like election night and the Lakers’ championship
45:08 - Reflection on downtown LA’s decline and the potential for rebuilding
47:33 - Amir’s plans for a photo book and documentary to preserve the 2020 story
50:32 - The realization that 2020 was the start of a new Los Angeles and a new chapter in his personal life
51:28 - Closing thoughts: Documenting beginnings, endings, and the resilience of both a city and a familyResources & Links:

• Book: Canyon Peacock’s Photo Series 

• Amir Ebrahimi’s Portfolio & Projects

Connect with Amir:

• Instagram

Final thoughts:
This episode is a visceral account of a tumultuous year, capturing not just a city’s decay and hope, but also a personal voyage through tragedy, parenthood, and resilience. Amir invites listeners to reflect on their own beginnings and endings amidst chaos, and to look forward to the visual recounting he plans to share.Please look out for the upcoming book and documentary later this year. Thank you for listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This episode of Shoot Wisely, I fly solo as I revisit downtown LA in 2020. Before 2020 changed everything, I was already documenting the faces, streets, and culture that made up downtown Los Angeles while living on the corner of Assign. But as the year unfolded, my camera captured a city going through grief, fear, celebration, anger, and uncertainty in real time. It started with the death of Kobe Bryant. Downtown became a memorial covered in flowers, murals, candles, and heartbreak. Then COVID hit, turning the city into a ghost town of empty streets and boarded up businesses. Then came the protests and riots of the death of Kobe Floyd the same day my daughter. As Los Angeles wrestled with chaos and emotion, downtown became the center stage of it all. From protests and police sirens to the Lakers Championship, the Dodgers Championship, and the presidential election, every major moment of 2020 seemed to pour directly into the streets of downtown LA. And through all of it, I documented as much as I could. This episode is about what it felt like to live inside of that moment. I would say the last normal day of my life was driving my dad to the airport in San Francisco. And I didn't know it, but that was the last time I would see my father alive. Somewhere along the drive, I got a call that Kobe and his daughter had passed away.

SPEAKER_07 1:25

Good afternoon from New York. We're coming on the air with breaking news, very sad news to tell the sports world. The LA Times is reporting that retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant has been killed in a helicopter crash. It happened this morning. The chopper reportedly went down just before 10 a.m. local time.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

And that set forth the fire department out there in Calabasas. A lost city. I'll start with how 2019 ended. It ended with a lot of uncertainty. I had found out that my on and off again girlfriend became pregnant and that we were expecting a child. I say that there was a lot of uncertainty because even in a relationship where two people are married and have years of experience together, there's a lot of uncertainty that comes with bringing a child into this world. And at that time, as I said, my partner at the time, we were on and off again. So it wasn't a very steady relationship. But when she found out she was pregnant, we both decided to give it a go and move in together. And we moved in together the end of November 2019 in downtown LA in a beautiful apartment complex in downtown LA. And I had started a project called DTLA culture, because my idea was that I wanted to capture downtown LA and create a platform similar to Timeout LA or Timeout New York, where there were stories behind what was going on in that area, not just the restaurants, not just the clubs and the cafes. But what were the stories behind the people that owned those places, the people that worked in those places? Because there was a lot of little restaurants, little cafes that were opening up. They were small businesses. And it was a very vibrant part of Los Angeles. It was a historic part. It is a historic part of Los Angeles. It's one of the only places in Los Angeles where there's actually a city. And also I spent 18 years in New York. So downtown LA kind of felt like this perfect mesh of New York and California meeting together in downtown LA. There was definitely homeless. There was definitely crime. But it was the type of type of situations that occurred in most cities that acted as a filtration system of, well, I don't want to live downtown because it's dirty. I don't want to live downtown because there's homeless. I don't want to live downtown because there's crime. But downtown was up and coming. Downtown was where a lot of artists live. Downtown is where people took chances and opened up restaurants. So that's how I went into 2020. I was very optimistic. I would say, though, that I was a little nervous about bringing a daughter into this world because as a man, it's a scary thing to bring in a daughter and to raise a daughter into a woman because it's not part of what you're familiar with. You know, to raise a as a man to raise a boy, it's very familiar. And it's something that I think comes very natural as a man to raise a young boy into a man because you just live off of, you just go off of your experience, experiences that you lived. Things that you do want your child to do, things you don't want your child to do. But as someone that knows what it's like to be a man, it was a little scary raising a daughter. So at the time, my father was living in Iran, and he came back to California because he was dealing with knee surgery and rehab. And he came here and he was finishing up his rehab and he was heading back to Iran. Him and I had a bit of a falling out due to a lot of circumstances, but uh oxycotton was a big part of it. Um my mom died of cancer, and along that timeline, my father got involved with oxycotton because that's what my mom was taking before she passed away. Needless to say, it it destroyed our relationship and um made things very difficult. It made very things very difficult between us, and we already had a very difficult relationship. So we did what we always did is we just didn't talk to each other, which since my mother wasn't alive and my brother wasn't alive anymore, there was nobody really to bring us back together until I found out that I was having a child. And that's when I reached it back out to my father, and you know, we quickly just squashed everything. And and at the time he was living in Iran, and and you know, when he said he when he came back to San Francisco that we would meet up again. So I was spending the night at my uncle's because that's where my father was spending his was where that's where my dad stayed when he went back to San Francisco because he didn't have a house anymore. I was living in LA, so he stayed at my uncle's house. So I went to my uncle's house, uh, we we you know squashed everything, had a very nice dinner, we broke bread. And that night I remember just feeling like a little kid because I was staying at my uncle's place, I was staying in a strange bed, and I was just kind of looking at my phone, just kind of stressing about raising a daughter. And I remember coming across a post of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, and the journey of this post, because it's a very famous clip where Kobe brings his daughter to the game, and he's they're sitting courtside, and there's a lot of celebrities, everybody's coming up to them saying hello. But he's in his daughter's ear, kind of breaking down a certain play. And in my mind, I'm thinking, see, I don't want to be a father like that that's forcing the game on her when she probably just wants to look at the celebrities or or just enjoy the game, as opposed to being in inundated with her father breaking down every nook and cranny of what was going on on the court. But as he was talking to her, she finished his sentence. And I remember him just mouthing right, right, right. And in that moment, I realized how wrong I was that Kobe was inundating Gigi with basketball when she was obsessed with basketball. And she was obsessed with the NBA. So everything that he was breaking down, not only was she taking it all in, she was also right along with him. And that's why Kobe was like, right, right, right, right. Whatever she said to him, he knew at that moment that she got it. And in that, in that moment, I realized that you have to take female male out of the equation. It's your child. And you just nurture your child. And yes, there are differences between females and males, and yes, there's there's a softness, there's a hardness, there's there's tough love, there's all those things, but at the end of the day, it's your child. And something put me at ease with that post where I just told myself, you know, just just raise your child and everything will be all right. So the next day we're driving to the airport, and I'm gonna drop my dad off at the airport, and then as soon as I drop him off, I'm gonna head right back to LA. Along that drive, a good friend of mine who I worked with in San Francisco, I mean in New York, called me. My friend Lance. A lot of people know him as Lance Fresh. He called me and he told me that Kobe died. And he said it on speakerphone with my father and I. And I remember when he told me the first thing I said was Gigi with him, because he said he died in a in a helicopter crash. And I I knew that he took the helicopter a lot to go to her games. So my first question was was Gigi with him? And it was just fresh in my mind because I mean, first of all, they're celebrities, so you, you know, they're they're in in the sphere. But like I said, that just the night before, maybe eight hours earlier, I was obsessing about this post and and crediting Kobe with putting my mind at ease. And one thing I should say as well is I've worked with Kobe. There were three different occasions where I worked with him personally, and then as somebody that covered the NBA, I just crossed paths with him a lot. But there were three, three times in particular where I worked with him. And all three of those times was with Lance Fresh. So I wouldn't go as far as saying I knew Kobe, but I knew of Kobe, and I knew what it meant to be in Kobe's presence, and I knew what it meant to introduce myself to Kobe the second time we worked together, and him being like, I know who you are, Amir, and that feeling that I got. Because I was obsessed with Michael Jordan. And I never gave Kobe any credit because he was just a copy of Michael Jordan, and and why settle for a copy when you lived the original? But I realized that towards the end of his career that I was totally wrong. That Kobe, yes, learned a lot from Michael Jordan, but Kobe was his own phenomena and he was masterful at playing basketball and he was masterful at his clap craft. And he was masterful with people. And you know, working with him, there was something about him that he commanded respect, but he also put you at ease. So there was a a deeper connection there as as opposed to just me admiring this athletic figure that was untouchable. Um I shook his hand. I I spent time with him. So he was a real person to me, is what I'm trying to say. So when I got back to Los Angeles that day, LA, I lived very close to Stapl Center because I was, or now crypto, but at the time it was Staple Center. I lived a 10-minute walk from the arena. So the arena quickly became a memorial for Kobe. And it became this area where people collectively mourned. And they posted pictures, they brought candles, they wrote notes. I remember people just writing on the street, writing their their thoughts about Kobe. People coming taking the picture in front of Staples Center, and it wasn't just downtown and Staples Center, it was collectively Los Angeles because the whole city was mourning. And it reminded me of 9-11 when seemingly the whole city shut down, which New York the city did shut down. But collectively there was a togetherness that we were all mourning the same thing, right? That New York had taken this hit, and we as a city had taken this hit, and we as a city were mourning uh this situation. So that was a very familiar uh feeling when Los Angeles was going through it, that Los Angeles lost its son. Los Angeles lost its Kobe, and not only its Kobe, but it lost its Gigi, which I think really hurt. The the loss of Kobe was was astronomical and a tragedy. And and those uh I think it was seven or eight other people that lost their lives. I don't I don't want to diminish that at all. But what really hurt was was Gigi. That that's what stung me at least, and I feel stung a lot of people, is you know, as young as Kobe was, he was extremely accomplished. He had his opportunity to live his life and accomplish goals past, I'm assuming his wildest dreams, not to mention a win an academia award. I'm not saying that he didn't have a lot more life to live and a lot more to offer, most more importantly, his family, but the world. But man, Gigi, you know, that one really hurt. It just it became a memorial. Uh I remember just trying to capture as many murals as I could and capture people in front of the murals. And it's something that I didn't do in New York. In New York, when the towers went down, I was completely paralyzed, thinking that I should go out and document, but I couldn't because I mean, even though I documented the actual towers going down and some of that aftermath with some pictures, I never left my apartment. I didn't go seeking to document the city. And that there is a guilt that has followed me throughout my whole life, even though I know that if I did go to ground zero or anywhere near there, the air was so toxic that I'm sure I saved my lungs a lot by staying in my apartment. So this time, when the city was mourning, I knew that I was just gonna document as much as possible. And also I felt a connection to downtown, not because I had spent a lot of time there, but because I decided to live there and it was gonna be our home and it was gonna be as crazy as it sounds, a place where I was gonna raise my child. And I really thought that I could see myself 20 years from now talking about, oh, when we moved to downtown LA 20 years ago. So I knew I was documenting history, and also it's something that just takes my mind off of things. It's just just to document. So that is what started 2020 was the passing of Kobe. At the time I was shooting the NBA, and it was uh a dream job for me to be able to spend time with the players, to be able to document the players, and to be able to spend so much time on the court capturing so many amazing moments of really my heroes and people that I deeply admired. And it was an incredible, it was an incredible job. And not to mention that I was going back and forth to the staple center, and I was able to walk back and forth from my apartment downtown walking to the staple center. It was it was just amazing. And then you heard the the the rumblings of this thing called COVID, and and then out of nowhere it just hit.

SPEAKER_06 18:32

A stunning announcement in Oklahoma City tonight. The coronavirus forces the NBA to send fans home just moments before the start of tonight's game between the Thunder and the Jazz.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

And everything shut down just overnight. Once they shut that one once they shut that NBA game down, that was it. There was no more shooting, and that's when I stopped shooting for the NBA, and I I never I never made it back. So I didn't know then, but I had shot my last NBA game. And then all of a sudden it was lockdown. And everything that came after that, just going and documenting empty streets and going to the grocery store and and you know, trying to get toilet paper and water and and just trying to navigate that, and and then all of a sudden windows started getting boarded up and it just became a ghost town. And as eerie as it was, and as uncertain as it was, there was also a a comfort in the fact that my partner was pregnant and she wasn't able to work. She had to stay home, she had to rest, and for me to be able to cook and for me to be able to just take care of her and spend time with her was very comforting. There was something where I felt a little bit of guilt because I knew there was I had a lot of friends that their their kids were being pulled out of school, and their kids were a lot older. My daughter wasn't even born yet, and my partner was very much pregnant, and I just remember she got to sleep a lot, and we got to cook a lot, and I just remember dinner being this event, and it really wasn't that bad for us with the world outside seemingly collapsing, our little apartment became this cocoon. It became this it just it was a beautiful apartment. There was a beautiful view, though there was a lot of light. It wasn't it it didn't feel like we were trapped. It felt like it felt like the world was slowing down and then eventually stopping because I was gonna have a kid and we needed to just chill out for a second. As crazy as that sounds, that's that's how we took it. And I feel guilty because I know that's not how a lot of people went through it. And money was a huge stress. I remember I didn't get any unemployment or any of the the uh PPP checks or anything like that for like almost five months because there was something they had the Social Security number wrong, or something was wrong with my paperwork. So it didn't look like I was gonna get anything. And then they were like, you're gonna get something, we're just trying to figure it out. But it was five months of that. I wasn't working anymore because of the NBA, and I had run through my savings. So it wasn't exactly uh all roses. There was a lot to be considered. Concerned about, but you know, we we got we got through it. And then um everything was worked out with the PPP. We didn't have to play, we didn't have to pay for uh our rent for six months. So er everything worked out. And I know it didn't work out for a lot of people, but for us, it it it did work out. So then came the day, May 25th, 2020, which was the day that Sophia decided to come into this world, which was two weeks earlier than she was scheduled to come. It was one o'clock in the morning, and my partner's water broke. And I believe by 4 a.m. Sophia was born. And we went to the hospital and they quickly realized that it was gonna have to be a C-section. So when Sophia was born, we then spent four days in the hospital for my partner to recover. And unbeknownst to us, on the same day that my daughter was born.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

On Monday, May 25th, Minneapolis police officers respond to a call about a customer using a counterfeit $20 bill. Officers arrive and pull the suspect, 46-year-old George Floyd, from his car, placing him in handcuffs. Minutes later, officers lay Floyd down beside the rear tire of the police car. An officer later identified as Derek Chauvin places his knee on Floyd's neck. As Floyd tells officers he can't breathe, bystanders plead for his life.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Stop and he's breathing right there, bro.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

May 25th, 2020 was the same day that George Floyd lost his life. And that name didn't mean anything to me. I had not heard about anything that had happened. But on that fourth day, when we finally came home, I remember making sure my partner got home and Sophia was sleeping, and we just we needed stuff for the house because we were in the hospital for four days. So I remember going to uh I remember going to the store, and at the time there was social distancing, so they can only let so many people into the store at a time. So, you know, I was standing six feet apart from a person in line waiting to actually get into the store. And that's when I opened up my phone for the first time. And the first post I saw was about umbrella man.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

The so-called umbrella man was caught on video smashing autozone windows with a sledgehammer during the second night of protests. He hasn't been arrested or charged, but according to the search warrant affidavit, police identified him as part of the Hell's Angels and a known associate of the white supremacist Aryan Cowboys.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

And and he instigated some um some riots or some aggressive protesting. And I realized then that they mentioned George Floyd, and and I remember in my mind thinking they killed another black man.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

I didn't dismiss it, but I was definitely desensitized by it.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

The same way that unfortunately we are desensitized by school shootings. As horrible as it is, thoughts and prayers, we go about our days. I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just I'm definitely saying it's wrong. I'm not saying it's right, but it's what it's what happens. And I it's what happened. And at the time, I justified it in my mind that this is what's going on in the world, but in my world, I'm bringing a new child into this crazy world. And I needed to maintain a level of sanity, a me a level of love, and I needed to more importantly be optimistic about the world. And what I was seeing on my phone reminded me of how destructive and how chaotic this world can be. So I shut I shut it off. And I remember getting back home and not even telling my partner what was going on, you know. Um so I remember coming home and setting everything up and and I took a nap. I was a little tired. Sleep was quite irregular at that point. So I took a nap in the middle of the day, and I woke up to where we lived downtown, there was a lot of echoes. The the alley behind us was uh we lived on the 11th floor, but still there was this like deep alley behind us, and there's there was just kind of like an echo every time something major would happen, whether it was a siren or uh a junkie yelling in the hallway, I mean in the alleyway, it just it it echoed like it was a canyon. And I woke up to echoes of chaos, and I remember being a little groggy and my partner saying, I think there's a parade downstairs. So at the time, I thought, well, I've been in the hospital for four days, and as I said, I was working on a project called DTLA culture. I thought, well, I haven't really documented much in downtown LA, so let me grab my camera. So I grabbed my camera and I went downstairs. And I remember asking my partner, I was like, oh, you mind if I just go check it out for a bit? She's like, no, go ahead, get some air. So I went downstairs and I remember, you know, when I was getting my camera, I remember like the sun was kind of going down because I remember thinking, like, oh, it's gonna be a little dark, but uh, it'll be fine. But by the time I get got downstairs, it was dark. And it was total chaos. And as soon as I got downstairs, I realized that this was not a parade, but this was this was a riot. It wasn't a protest, it was a riot. There was chaos. I heard sirens, I heard flashbangs, and I was kind of like trickling as I was getting I wanted to find the end of the um as I was heading through the street and helicopters. I remember I remember taking a picture of a helicopter, and I was looking through the viewfinder because I couldn't really see. And somebody touched me on the shoulder and I turned around and it was like what seemed like a homeless guy, and he kind of just looked at me like this, and I realized that look, I'm in an active arena because part of me felt like I was in the arena of the NBA and I was capturing the chaos of what goes on before the game. Because when you're shooting in the NBA, because I'd never shot like actual game footage, what I would do is I would capture the players before uh and after the game. So when the players were warming up, I would try to catch moments. And in in the moments leading up to an NBA game, it's it's kind of chaotic. You have other photographers trying to get shots, you have uh the newscast trying to get interviews, you got players trying to warm up. But in between those moments, you're trying to find whether it's a legendary ex-player that that meets with somebody and you're trying to get that moment together, or a moment between a coach and an ex-player, or you're trying to constantly get those moments. So you're constantly looking and trying to anticipate what's going to happen. Whether you see Jerry West here, and then you know, you see whatever James Harden over here, and you know at some point they're gonna get together and talk, you try to position yourself in a place where you can capture that photograph. Because if you're just constantly following somebody, you're never gonna get the right shot. You have to somehow, somehow be where they're going to be. So when I was shooting, I kind of went into that mode of I'm just documenting and I'm trying to, you know, find the best angle and find out what's going on. So finally I did find the epicenter of it. And it was uh the police line. It was uh like a barricade that the police had made. And they were throwing tear gas, and uh, you know, you had people that were taking pictures of them, and they have people that were definitely instigating. You had people that were throwing objects into windows just to just to break businesses. And I was just positioning myself to get to document. I wasn't trying to make a statement, I was literally just documenting what was going on downtown. So while I was shooting, I remember positioning myself with the protesters, shooting, getting a perspective of the police coming at them. And yeah, I I remember first hearing woof, then instinctively turning around. And at the time I thought I got shot because it the amount of pain that I felt, the sting that I felt, it felt like I I was my skin was penetrated. It felt like I had been shot. I took two, two, three steps, and then I realized that I wasn't shot, that I was hit with um with one of those balls, which basically feels like uh an eight ball uh or like a really hard um racquetball. And then I was just upset. I was just upset that I was hit. Now it you know, you realize that once you're in that environment, you you know, anything goes. You you you you can get shot. But in 2020, which I know it's not that long ago, I was still shocked. I still felt like, hey, you know, I should be able to take pictures without getting shot by the cops. And you know, I don't blame the cops. I I realized that I put myself in a situation where I don't know, it's uh I put myself in that situation to get shot, and I realize that now. At the time, I didn't. At the time I felt like there was no need for it. And I'm not saying that it was justified, but you know, you put yourself in those situations and and those type of things happen. So that really set off, I would say three weeks of what felt like living in a war zone because of living on the 11th floor and our deck, and and as I said, everything echoed as if we lived in a canyon. There was flashbangs, there was sirens, uh, multiple helicopters flying above head. Um it just it just felt like a war zone, and especially at night. It just it just would go on and on and on and on and on. And I would document, but I was definitely more cautious because I look, I just had a daughter. I don't need to be in the streets putting myself in harm's way. It wasn't it wasn't as important as people might think it is for me to document. There was a lot of people documenting. But I will say though, that I wouldn't use the word exciting, but there was something about it that was very real and made me feel very alive. And I also realized that there's something about me that made me good at documenting and being able to navigate the chaos, and if it wasn't for my daughter, that I would have followed the chaos as a new career path for sure because everything that led up to that, you know the the riots um the next year and just everything. I mean I I continued to document downtown LA but there was something that felt meaningful about documenting history and because of social media being able to instantly share what was going on, I felt like I was informing people of what it was like on the ground level. I felt like I was documenting history and I know other people were doing it, but as far as my part as far as what I was doing, it felt important. It felt it I I don't know how else to say it, it just felt very real. There was nothing fabricated about it, it was just documenting the chaos. And there was something extremely sad about it too, because all the dreams and hopes that I had for DTLA and growing with that community were were dying right in front of me. And I saw a lot of people that were very young that were just destroying, you know, small businesses, anything in their path. And I mean, even the the Starbucks, it just got destroyed. And and I'm I'm not advocating for Starbucks, but it just wasn't necessary. It just it just didn't have anything to do with anything. It just was it just was destruction. And, you know, these these these shop owners and these people that are trying to live their lives, they're just getting through COVID and then all of a sudden this happens.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

These people that are doing the looting shit have no fucking ambition, will never amount to anything in life. They're just a fing bunch of losers that wanna come up on free. Cause George Floyd is sad that he died, but this started out with George Floyd, but it amounted to this let's cause chaos and get free. This isn't about George Floyd anymore. He's in the past. They forgot about him. Now they're trying to come up.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

And they they don't have anything to do with what happened, but all their property just gets completely destroyed. And, you know, a lot of those people that were doing it, they didn't have to walk those streets the next day. But we lived there for another two years. And, you know, walking around all those boarded up windows. And then because of that, since so many windows and storefronts were boarded up, Skid Row just expanded. It just expanded. And there was nobody to shoe somebody away from their storefront because they were opening up at seven o'clock in the morning. Nobody was opening up. So storefronts were boarded up, and every corner just had like another tent, or just another person just passed out, and downtown became it became like very Mad Max. And that's why I started like finding so many parks throughout Los Angeles, because anytime I took out my daughter, I couldn't take her anywhere downtown or anywhere near downtown. So we had to find parks all over the city. And as I said, I was meeting a lot of the shop owners and meeting a lot of the people that made up downtown LA just months before all this chaos broke out. And I saw the potential and I saw where downtown Los Angeles was going in 2019 into 2020, and just how that was completely destroyed. And then it just kept getting destroyed, even in times of celebration. The Lakers won the bubble championship. So people went back down to downtown L. And in their celebration, once again, they destroyed downtown LA. And then the Dodgers won. And people went back downtown LA to that was their arena for destruction. That that was their arena for celebration, which resulted in destruction. And I documented that too. And it just seemed like one thing after the other.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Which was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

But I I left uh downtown LA and my family at the time for uh like 10 days. And that was really difficult to travel. I felt irresponsible. I felt like I was uh putting my family in harm's way just because of all the misinformation out there. And the final event that I will say happened in downtown LA was when Biden won. Once again, downtown LA became an arena for celebration. And that that seemingly left 2020 in an optimistic view. And I'm I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to look back now with our 2020 vision, just what what was in our what was in our in our thoughts, what was going to happen. It seemed very optimistic. But looking back now as we just passed as I'm recording this, it's May 26th of 2026, which means yesterday was my daughter's sixth birthday, and her mother and I aren't together anymore, but we have a great relationship. My daughter and I are extremely close as she is with her mother. And although I wouldn't call it the perfect scenario, for us it's a really good scenario. Our daughter is loved immensely by her father and her mother, and her mother and her father have an understanding that our daughter was an absolute blessing. For me in particular, my daughter, as somebody that's lost his mother, his father, and his brother, my daughter is an absolute angel that was sent to me, and that I feel extremely lucky to have my daughter in my life. Downtown LA has not recovered. Downtown LA is worse off than it was in 2019. I don't see any rebuilding happening. And I don't know why any shop owner would take a chance to to open anything up in downtown LA. Downtown LA is the epicenter of chaos in a very chaotic city. Everything that's wrong with LA, you can See downtown. And it's an absolute shame. The building across from the Apple store and the building across from the Orpheum, which is attached to the Ace Hotel, that whole building is basically a city block. And they were renovating that in 2019, and I believe they finished around 2020. That beautiful building is still completely boarded up. There's nothing, as far as I know, there's nothing going on. There, uh the corner of where we live, spring and eighth, there was a beautiful restaurant called Taroni, which had a beautiful European market connected to it. And those big, beautiful windows were the first to get broken. And that place is still completely empty. That whole corner, it just hasn't amounted to anything. And the potential for downtown is is astronomical, but unfortunately now I think the only thing that can take chances there are chains. So it's just gonna be uh, I don't know, maybe like a Times Square, what happened to Times Square in New York. But what I would like to do is come up with a photo book, much like I did with Canyon Peacock's, that just documents everything that happened downtown LA through my lenses in 2020. And I also think there's room for a documentary to just talk about what really happened in 2020 without getting into the politics, but just well, I don't know if you could tell the story without getting into the politics, but I'm I'm not I have no interest in getting into the politics. I just want to again talk about it through my experience and use the pictures and videos that I shot to help visualize what happened and what happened through my eyes and through my lens just as a historical moment in time. And I don't think it needs to be political, and I don't think it needs to sway on either side of any aisle if there is any aisles left. I think it could just simply be a documentation of what happened and the simple fact that so much was lost in 2020. But then for me personally a new life was brought into this world. As I said, my angel was brought into this world. It's a contradiction that is constant in life. There's always death, there's always birth. There's always an ending, there's always a beginning. So for me, that's what DTLA 2020 is. It's a moment in time that reflects a lot of ends, but the most important beginning for me. So I hope you enjoyed my rambling recap of the events of 2020 as I experienced them. And I appreciate you listening. Please look out for the book and the documentary that hopefully will come out later this year. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Shoe Wisely. If you found something in this conversation that inspired you, moved you, or made you think a little differently, please share it with someone who might need to hear it. Your support means a lot and it truly helps the show grow. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave a review or comment on your favorite podcast platform. Those small actions make a big difference and help more people discover these conversations. I'm your host, Amir Bahimi. And remember, create with intention, live with curiosity, and always shoot wisely.