FAQ for pictures of Los Angeles murals site

The following represent common types of Email that I get about this site. If you have a question or request, please check this list first.

If none of these answers your question, then please contact me at rpmurals@att.net.

Q. I'd like to know more about the project or its results.

A. Try this document.

Q. Can you help me contact a particular mural artist?

A. In general, no. I have some muralist contact information from the year 2000, but it's now out of date, and I don't really know whether any particular muralist wants their contact information given out or not. You're better off trying first Google, then MCLA, then SPARC, then perhaps the city mural office.

Q. Can you take a picture of a mural that I've seen or painted?

A. No, since I no longer live in the Los Angeles area, and the site only covers murals in the L.A. area. If you want to take your own picture of the mural, I may be able to put it on the site under certain conditions (see below).

Q. Can I use one of your pictures?

A. I generally don't give permission to use these pictures within any commercial project, since I don't really see why a project intended to make money should exclude the muralist who actually painted the mural. (If you'd like to contact the muralist, and they tell me that they want you to use the picture, then I probably would have no objection). I often give permission for use of pictures within noncommercial projects, or for classroom use, but you should ask me for permission first through Email. If you need one, I can usually supply a high-resolution version of a picture (for pictures whose filenames begin with p or n).

Q. Can I send you a picture of a mural to put up on your site?

A. I'd be happy to put up your picture, under the following conditions:

  1. The picture must be of a mural in the L.A. area. If you've done some great work in N.Y., I'd be happy to look at your picture, but the site is really about murals in L.A.
  2. The picture has to be digital, a jpg that is ideally at least 800 pixels long in its longest dimension. Pictures much smaller than this don't really show enough detail.
  3. You have to have detailed information about the mural. This is really one of the most critical parts of the site; no one wants to look through a stack of pictures of a thousand murals without the pictures being indexed in some way. In order to use your picture, I need, at a bare minimum, the street address of the mural, and any other information written on the mural itself that you can read if you approach the mural closely. Ideally, this set of information includes the street address, the area of the city (as described on the rest of this site), the name of the business or building that the mural is on if any, the artist(s), the sponsor(s), and any dedications on the mural.
  4. The mural has to be one that I haven't already taken a picture of, unless your picture is much better. Check the site first (look at the page by area of the city) to see whether the mural is already there.
  5. You must be willing for me to give others permission to use your picture. I'll do my best to keep track that you were the one who took the picture, but this site is intended, among other purposes, to provide a resource for art historians and other noncommercial users. Over the years, I probably will lose contact with you, and I don't want to have to try to contact everyone before, say, donating the database of pictures to an archival facility.
  6. The mural is not merely a mass-produced billboard for a particular product.

If your picture meets those conditions, then please do Email it to me along with the information about it. I will put your name up as the person who took the picture. Thanks!

Q. Can you link to my site?

A. Sure, if your site is somehow connected to murals in L.A. In that case, I'd also like you to link back to this site.

Q. I'd like you to take down some of your pictures.

A. If you are the artist, owner, or sponsor of a mural, I will take down any picture of that mural that you ask me to take down. The only exception occurs when an artist tells me one thing and an owner tells me another, which can get more complicated. Past requests for takedown of pictures have come from sponsors / owners (SPARC asked me to not show pictures of any mural that they'd sponsored), from artists for their whole body of work, and from artists that were dissatisfied with the quality of particular pictures. (If you'd like a better picture, see below.)

Q. Can't you take a better picture of a mural? The light is bad / there are cars in the way / there are commercial signs, street signs, etc that should have been removed.

A. No, sorry. I no longer live in the L. A. area, and can't take any new pictures. But in general, even if I was still in L.A, I probably couldn't. I took these pictures by driving around the city during odd moments of free time and taking pictures of any murals that I saw (I'd also try to hunt down murals in Robin Dunitz' Street Gallery book). I had no ability or time to wait for better conditions, or to get people to move things around - it is not possible to take pictures of lots of murals if you have to wait for a good setup for each one. In addition, my camera was a cheap point-and-shoot. These pictures were taken as part of a hobby, not as part of a professional photography job.

You might be able to take a better picture yourself and send it to me, see above.

Q. Can you advise me on how to get a mural painted?

A. Not really, since I've never painted or sponsored one myself (although I have contributed some towards mural preservation). The City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department has a good site that discusses mural permits and public funding.

 

Copyright 2004 Rich Puchalsky

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