This aerial shot turns a banal urban landscape into an abstract geometric design. Ruscha captured these empty Los Angeles parking lots for the intersections of Wiltshire and Santa Monica Blvds early one Sunday morning in 1967 from a helicopter. From above the parking lots appear to be abandoned urban spaces, covered in skid marks and oil stains that mark the traces of human presence. In 1999, Ed Ruscha selected 30 images from his artist book ‘Thirtyfour Parking Lots’ 1967/1999 and reprinted them as the print portfolio ‘Parking Lot Series’ 1967/1999 of which this image is one. He said, “over the years I began to appreciate print quality and see my photographs as not necessarily reproductions for a book, but as having their own life as silver gelatine prints.”