Julius Shulman’s human touch

Re “A Photographic Memory” [March 3]: Julius Shulman is truly a living treasure.

Most architectural photographers would die before putting a human element in their sterile photos. Julius has people, dogs, even kids’ toys in his photos. Nice human touch.

Julius has been very generous with his time working with my volunteer group, Friends of Hollyhock House. One time he was showing us a photo of the Wiltern Theatre. I said, “Julius, it looks like you stood in the intersection of Wilshire and Wiltern to take that.”

He looked surprised and said, “Well, of course I did! That was before they had a traffic light there. They had a traffic cop during the day. I just had him hold the traffic while I set up the tripod and took the shot. One shot.”

I had not realized he took the photo more than 70 years before, in 1931, when the theater was new.

Mark Willis

San Pedro