The Life in My Years

My San Francisco: The Black and White of It

Paul

February 25, 2026

My San Francisco is a series of posts that describes my own personal relationship with The City. My San Francisco pieces might be photo essays; they might be life stories, or they could be commentaries. My impressions aren’t always paeans to San Francisco; it’s a beautiful city, but like any beautiful city, it has its dark side and its ugly stories. These pieces will always have one common theme; they are expressions of my personal San Francisco experience.

“To some extent, the cult surrounding black-and-white photography is based on nostalgia” – René Burri

Maybe Monsieur Burri has a point. I originally shot the image below from Embarcadero Center, looking up Pine Street. In color. I sort of despised it and so it languished in the archives for ages until I started dabbling in monochrome. On a whim I edited the image into monochrome and the first thought that came to mind is that it reminded me of something that I might have seen in an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, circa 1959. I don’t love it, but I do like the nostalgic newsy feel about it.

Maybe my attraction to noir fiction, the dark, brooding crime stories starring anti-hero, hard boiled gumshoe detectives, is also nostalgia based. And so I guess it’s only natural that I gravitate to shooting photos in alleys and darkening the mood of the images. The image below was taken in an alley near San Francisco’s Financial District.

The image below of Jaspar Street creates a far different mood in the color version, in which the buildings at the end are quite colorful in pink and green pastels.

Lens-Artists Challenge #386: The Power of Juxtaposition

Paul

16 comments

February 21, 2026

juxtaposition
noun
jux·ta·po·si·tion ˌjək-stə-pə-ˈzi-shən

: the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side often to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect.

This week Patti challenges us to find images that invite the viewer to weigh objects in a photo against each other.

Banner photo: The juxtaposition of colors in a mustard field near Half Moon Bay, California.

In most cities it’s not hard to find examples of old versus new. In the image below the Golden Gate Bridge looms over Civil War era, Fort Point.

Below, an 18th century gravestone in St. Matthew’s Anglican Cemetery in Quebec City, Canada sits next to diners enjoying their meals at a bistro. Old and new. Alive and, well, not so much.

Below: In Krakow I found this interesting building that combined both old and new, as well as distressed on top of renovated.

The image below, taken from California Street illustrates the juxtaposition of old (the brick building in the lower right), the new (a mid 20th century building), and the newest (the Salesforce Tower). The image also shows San Francisco’s cultural history.

My San Francisco: Year of the Horse

Paul

9 comments

February 17, 2026

Banner photo: A Chinatown shop displays horses in celebration.

Today begins the Year of the Horse. I celebrate each Lunar New Year season by visiting Chinatown in San Francisco, a place that holds many lifetime memories.

Colorful, vibrant, bustling, ever changing yet at the same time never changing Chinatown is one of my go to places for photography.

On historic old Ross Alley I found young lion dancers preparing for the festivities.

Scene on the Streets: A Nation Divided

Paul

10 comments

February 13, 2026

The signs of uncertain times.

“. . . when a people or family so divide, it never fails to be against themselves.” ~ Federalist No. 4, John Jay. November 7, 1787.

” However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. ” ~ George Washington’s Farewell Address. September 17, 1796.

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” ~ John Adams in a letter to Jonathan Jackson on October 2, 1780.

Somewhere in Southeast Oregon. “Let’s go Brandon” became a euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden.”

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” ~ Abraham Lincoln. June 16, 1858.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” asked Elizabeth Willing Powel of Benjamin Franklin, as the Constitutional Convention adjourned.

“A republic, if you can keep it,” replied Dr. Franklin. September 17, 1787.

Regardless of party or ideology, the question hangs.

Can we keep it?

Lens Artists Photo Challenge: What Astonishes You

Paul

10 comments

February 8, 2026

Banner photo: Austrian National Library Vienna. I’m astonished by man’s perpetual search for knowledge.

This week’s Lens Artist Challenge is almost limitless in possibilities. During my travels I’ve been astonished by nature’s handiwork and by the creations of man.

The natural power of water

The tranquility of water created by man

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #381: Minimalism in Black-and-White

Paul

16 comments

January 21, 2026

Every now and again a Lens Artists Challenge beckons and this most recent challenge hollered, “come on down.”

Over the past few years I’ve become so captivated by black and white or, monochrome that when I compose an image I try to image what it will look like in monochrome.

My banner photo was taken at the Südtiroler Platz-Hauptbahnhof station, in Vienna. I shot this image very early on a Sunday morning while the usual hordes of people were enjoying sleeping in.

Vienna is known for it’s grand Baroque buildings but there is some magnificent modern architecture, particularly at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Yeah, well, the photo below was not taken there because a rent-a-cop at the university asked me not to take photos. My sense is that the architect would not be pleased with someone banning photos of his work. The building below is the OBB building across the street from Hauptbanhof station.

The tallest building in San Francisco is the much maligned Salesforce Tower. A small fraction of that building is pictured below.

Below is the once maligned and now mostly beloved TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco. When the Pyramid was proposed the San Francisco public was in alternate states of embarrassment and outrage. All (well, almost all) is forgiven now that it’s become an iconic part of the San Francisco skyline.

Sadr City Comes to Main Street

Paul

7 comments

January 18, 2026

“I was in cities, you know, of, you know, fifty to a hundred thousand in Iraq surrounded by insurgents. And we Marines, well trained Marines, did not act the way that they’re doing, the way they’re treating other fellow Americans right now.”

“They’re using tactics that, you know, we didn’t even use in Iraq in urban areas to basically suppress and make the people feel like they’re under attack.” ~ Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who deployed to Iraq with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines.

Most Americans have seen it played out in one form or another. Whether it was in photos, news footage, or in a documentary, Americans have seen United States soldiers in tactical gear poised in front of a door in an Iraqi city. The names are etched in America’s bloody history; Baghdad (Sadr City), Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul. One man in front, tense and primed to break down the door, his team crouched behind, weapons at the ready. The door is breached, and the soldiers burst through the entrance in a lethal dance, every move choreographed hundreds of times in training and actual combat. The inhabitants either act with deadly resistance or in overwhelmed terror. The scenes were played out over and over again, a loop of America’s endless, senseless war in Iraq. The operative word is

war.

With the dawning of 2026 a horrified nation is once again watching Americans in tactical gear, carrying long guns breaching doors and waging war. Only this time it isn’t in some obscure city in the Middle East. This time the city under siege is Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America. The regime calls it law enforcement but make no mistake, the operative work is

war.

on its own citizens.

An Empire Based on Lies

Paul

6 comments

January 6, 2026

“This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened.” Tweeted by the Department of State, January 5, 2026.

“I feel better going into this New Year than I did a year ago,” I told my son.

My son disagreed. He and his wife and two children were visiting for four days, starting on Christmas Eve. It was the day after Christmas and the grandchildren were enjoying their video game gifts, while Matthew and I exchanged our predictions for America and the world in 2026.

At around 6 o’clock on the morning of Saturday Jan 3rd, my optimism was shattered when I turned on the T.V. and saw scenes of the fiery flashes of bomb blasts above a chyron that described a U.S. assault on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, and the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife and son.

“Fucking Trump,” I said in a tone that sent my dog Lexi to the other room. Over the years she’s learned that “fucking Trump,” means papa is not happy.

Well of course the United States attacked Venezuela. It makes all the sense in a world that’s ceased to make sense. Trump didn’t station a massive fleet off the Venezuelan coast so the sailors could enjoy the balmy Caribbean weather.

Yet even as the fleet sat off the Venezuelan coast and the U.S. continued to commit murder on the high seas by bombing what the Trump regime claimed (without proof) were drug runners, I didn’t think that Trump would go through with an actual incursion.

How stupid was I?

This Old Man’s Winter

Paul

7 comments

December 23, 2025

This old man has a hard time figuring out what inspires writers, poets and artists to gush sentimentally about the time of year when darkness, dampness and cold hold sway over light, comfort and warmth.

Take Andrew Wyeth who came up with this ode to the frosty seasons. “I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.”

I have to believe that Andrew must have been deep into his hot toddies when he came up with that one, because the only bone structure that I feel on a winter morning is my own groaning skeleton and the chill that creeps up my spine when my feet hit the cold floor in the morning.

It’s December 23rd, and yesterday was my favorite day of winter. The 22nd is when the days grow longer. Oh sure, it’s imperceptible but just the knowledge that we’re hitting the back side of winter is a benediction from the weather gods.

All of that said, like it’s seasonal siblings, winter does present its own unique photo opportunities; some dour and others chilly and at the same time bright.

Snow

It’s fun to watch dogs and kids romp in it.

I love watching (American) football games being played in a blizzard where the markings on the field have been reduced to guess work. To be clear I love watching from the comfort of my living room, wrapped in a comforter and holding a steaming bowl of soup. Is there something perverse about my enjoyment over watching the steam coming from the nostrils of fans as they huddle in their multi-layers of winter gear? Nah, they choose to be their and they probably arrived in their seats well oiled from multiple shots of their favorite adult beverage.

For someone from the San Francisco Bay Area snow is a nice little novelty that makes the home feel all the more comforting and warm. But it doesn’t take long for snow to wear out its welcome with the first fishtail on an icy street or a bruised bottom after an unexpected skate on a frozen sidewalk.

All of that said, for the photographer, winter, like its seasonal siblings, provides its own unique photo opportunities.

There’s a little secret about the following set of pictures of wintry wonderlands.

What’s in a Name?

Paul

8 comments

December 20, 2025

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Juliet, in her soliloquy, diminishes the significance of a name; in this instance Romeo’s surname, Montague.

Romeo would be the same “dear perfection,” she proclaims, if he were a mere Smith or Jones.

But maybe not a Trump.

Unlike a rose, which would always be pleasantly fragrant even if it were named, say, “dung,” a name can still carry a distinct odor about it. Take the name Trump for instance. Nothing rosy there. More like the stench of a mackerel after ten days under a broiling sun.

That rot was made even more conspicuous and all the more foul when “The John F Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts” was suddenly and somewhat quietly renamed “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

When I heard the news, my reaction was the same revulsion as I might have had if I’d opened my front door to get a whiff of that rotting fish. My response on social media included not one, not two, but a total of four “fucks.” And a follow up post included yet one more “fuck.”

As someone who was just hitting double digits in age when John F. Kennedy was in office, and whose parents shared the national fascination with JFK, this renaming to include Donald J. Trump struck me as particularly revolting.

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