"The Strand, Hermosa Beach" is available in a limited edition of 100 large format digital inkjet prints measuring 12 in. x 26 in. It is printed on fine watercolor paper and matted on acid-free museum board (outer dimensions: 20 in. x 34 in.) We recommend the optional hand cut "crazy mat" which outlines the irregular edge of the image.
The frames are custom cut aluminum and plexiglass.
We will ship your order within five days. All prices include shipping and handling.
Paypal processes our secure online credit card orders and will appear as the payee on your credit card statement.
Please see the contact page for alternative payment information.
All images © Brian Minami.
"The Strand" is a colorful depiction of the beach front strip in the southern California town of Hermosa Beach. Hermosa became famous as a sleepy surfing hangout in the fifties and sixties. It has evolved into a playground for local Los Angeles beach-goers and the professionals and dot com millionaires who razed the old bungalows and built stylish homes in the eighties and nineties. Hermosa is now one of the few places in southern California that retains the charm of a small neighborhood despite the unchecked growth of the surrounding metropolitan region.
The image is composed of more than twenty conventional 35mm exposures. The seperate shots are digitally montaged to produce a single cinematic vista of the area and its denizens. At once pleasing and challenging, the composition places the viewer in different locations and at separate times. The viewer must actively process asynchronous fragments of visual information. Discontinuous snapshots are digested and recombined (re-membered) to produce a comprehensible picture. The result is a many layered interpretation of the area unlike that which is produced from a single exposure.
The images are 11 in. x 14 in. cibachrome photographs hand printed from large format transparencies. Each print is archivally processed and matted with acid-free museum board. The aluminum and plexiglass frames (16 in. x 20 in.) are well designed yet inexpensive.
We will ship your order within five days. All prices include shipping and handling.
Paypal processes our secure online credit card orders and will appear as the payee on your credit card statement.
Please see the contact page for alternative payment information.
All images © Brian Minami.
"Hungo Pavi" is an ancient building in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Built and inhabited over a thousand years ago, the complex was abandoned for unknown reasons 800 years ago. Modern astronomers have determined that the buildings were designed and constructed by indigenous astronomers who built walls in line with solar events. This picture was shot the day before the summer solstice when the setting sun illuminates the north facing wall.
Lordsburg is a small town in southwestern New Mexico near the Mexican border. The region was the site of the Apache wars. Geronimo and other Chiricahua Apaches lived in the mountains surrounding the region.
The town was founded around silver mines at the turn of the century and grew when the Santa Fe Railroad was built. During World War II, the town boomed again as construction of a prison camp for Japanese enemy aliens commenced.
The Japanese immigrants were arrested after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the flimsiest of pretexts. Most were elderly teachers, priests and farmers. My great-grandfather, an insurance salesman, was confined here.
The area to the right of the fence was the compound area where the internees lived. To the left, outside of the picture is the site of the killing of two sick issei men shotgunned as they walked from the train to the compund area.
Today, approximately 2000 people live here. Despite the racist history of the town, Lordsburg's residents are some of the most warm and friendly people you will ever meet.
The Three Rivers Petroglyph National Monument contains hundreds of petroglyphs by indigenous artists. The area lies 20 miles east of Alamogordo, the site of the first atomic bomb test.
The big horned sheep pictured here is one of the most famous images in this locale. The depiction of the sheep conforms to the shape of the rock. The artist seemingly transformed the rock into a sheep fleeing hunters over the wind swept terrrain.
All of the documentary images on this website are available as 8 in. x 10 in. high quality machine prints at a price of $32.50 including shipping and handling. Prints will be mailed within five days.
Paypal processes our secure online credit card orders and will appear as the payee on your credit card statement.
Those wishing to license an image for publication should send an email request to minami@pacificnet.net.
Please see the contact page for alternative payment information.
All images © Brian Minami.