‘There was this lone, shirtless guy on the street’: Bradley Meinz’s best phone picture

The LA-based photographer on the sunbather he stumbled across on a walk to Beachwood Canyon during the pandemic

If you looked through Bradley Meinz's living room window, you'd see the Hollywood sign. The photographer lives in LA's Beachwood Canyon, and in February 2020 he was taking daily hikes to the landmark and back. News of a pandemic was beginning to circulate, and the streets were uncharacteristically deserted. It was on one of those hour-long walks that he stumbled across this man, taking a moment for himself in the warming winter sun.

The red and white sign was up for some kind of movie or photoshoot, to allow production trucks to park," Meinz says. Anyone who knows LA knows the sheer density of traffic and bodies, yet there is a void of that here. Instead, there was this lone, shirtless guy, not even on the sidewalk, but parked' on the street. He's flouting the rules, but not in a serious way."