How a Daredevil Photographer in a Biplane Helped Bring L.A.
Noire to LifeS  To recreate modern-day Los Angeles in a video
game, all one has to do is load up Google Earth and go to town,
so to speak. To recreate the 1940's Los Angeles of Rockstar's
L.A. Noire, one man had to hang out of a biplane.  Team Bondi
might be making a name for themselves creating the lifelike face
mapping technology that grants uncanny life to the criminals,
cops, and civilians of L.A. Noire, but to recreate a realistic
1940's Los Angeles the team had to use decidedly low tech means.
They found those means in the photography of Robert Spence now
archived as part of The Spence Collection at The Benjamin and
Gladys Thomas Air Photo Archives at UCLA. Spence risked his life
on a regular basis throughout the 20's, 30's, and 40's, hanging
out the side of a biplane holding a 46 pound camera, documenting
a side of the city few at the time had seen.  According to a
profile of Spence recently run in Air and Space Magazine, the
Los Angeles rich