My good friend Jeff and I recently made another trip out to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to do some aviation photography.  We had been planning this trip for a few weeks, and wanted to get out there just before Christmas in the hopes of increased airline and cargo traffic.  This would be my first trip where we planned to spend the night, normally we have been doing 18-30 hour out-and-back trips with very little sleep.  This trip would be 37+ hours long, but we would have the opportunity to sleep in a nice hotel room very close to LAX.  This would also be our first trip with an opportunity to take night photos from the parking garage of ramp activity.  This yielded some good opportunities, but you had to wait long periods of time for each opportunity.

We left Phoenix around Noon on the 20th of December and drove straight through to Los Angeles.  We had seen a few photos taken in the area after sunset, and we talked to a few people on where to go for these photos.  After spending a few hours in the dark taking photos, it was time to head back to our separate hotel rooms for a nice, peaceful night's sleep.

The next morning we planned to head over to the Westchester In-N-Out for some pre-dawn/early morning arrivals.  This area didn't work very well, so we moved to the Imperial Hill.  Neither of us had been to Imperial Hill before, but it turned out to be a great location.  We spent a good portion of our day at Imperial Hill, but we did also spend a few hours at a different location.  This other location turned out to be a bit of a secret, as far as gaining access, but it's a great location that I have used before.

This was a great trip with a great friend, and I was able to come home with some great photos and memories.  I'm already finding myself looking forward to my next trip out to LA!

Thanks Jeff, I appreciate all that you did for me during this trip, it's friends like you that makes this profession/hobby great!