Dear Reader,
One of my favorite locations in 2012 was Locke, located on the Sacramento Delta, about an hour and half from San Francisco or forty-five minutes from Sacramento. What I found so interesting about this location is; the architecture from a bygone era looked as it did when the city was founded in 1915. Locke is not an amusement park, it is a real town, with real residents, with businesses that sell things beyond cheap souvenirs. It was one of those places, unless I knew a good tour guide or got lost somewhere on the delta, I would never had discovered this gem.
Last winter one of my clients booked me on a fashion shoot in the town of Locke, I had to look this place up on Google maps. None of my friends or my sisters heard of this place, normally for parking purposes I like to scout the location in advance, unfortunately I was in LA at the time and I did not have the time to drive to the location in my car. I relied on my GPS and directions provided by my client, I decided to leave extra early in case I hit any heavy traffic. The strategy work out, there was an accident on the freeway and it delayed the rest of the crew by an hour, I had plenty of time to set up and do a little last minute cleaning.
Form a fashion standpoint, Locke offers photographers many options, which is important if you are trying to create a certain mood or you need a place that could be a city in Italy, France or China without the passport. Locke doesn’t look fake, it is not some facade on some Hollywood lot, it is alive with people who call this place home. Beyond the main street where all the shops are located, there are small residential homes, rustic, with their own personality. The grass is green, the trees form a nice canopy to keep everything cool, even on the warmest of days. For a moment I thought I traveled to the South on a lazy summer afternoon. I could smell the Sacramento River from across the street as it snakes its way to San Francisco Bay.
If you plan on filming in Locke for more than a day, Sacramento is the best place to lodge and feed your crew, it is about forty-five minutes from Sacramento. There are several ways to get to Locke from San Francisco, for large vehicles, this is not the quickest route, this is the best route and it will take a good two hours without traffic. Take I-80 east, to I-5 south, exit Twin Cities Road, make a right at Twin Cities Road, left at Hwy 13, travel half of a mile, Locke is on the left.
If you have any questions about this location and or you need a motor home for your next shoot, call me Mike Green at 415.730.7127 or 818.317.7099.
