Reader photo: Venice

When people think of California, they think of sandy beaches full of people on a hot sunny day. If you’re like me, however, you don’t really care much for hot, sunny beaches. Give me a cold, cloudy, moody beach in winter any day.

Kevin Balluff’s surreal image of Venice Beach captures this mood perfectly. The image was shot on Ilford XP1 film, which ended production in the early 1990s. The film is so far past its expiration date that the “ink from the markings on the backing paper transferred to the film emulsion,” according to Balluff, resulting in the ghostly numbers in the middle of the frame. The film was also cross-processed as a slide frame, which gives it the strange color, and pushed two stops, giving the print an extra-grainy look.

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Each week, we’re featuring photos of Southern California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or reader submission gallery. Follow us on Twitter or visit latimes.com/socalmoments for more on this photo series.