The Life in My Years

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.

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“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.

I’ve taken to geometric photography and I think that monochrome suits it well. The TransAmerica Pyramid with its overall shape and the many beams at the base, is a great place to capture the geometry of modern architecture.

The image below was taken in color, at street level, beneath the beams of the pyramid looking towards Clay Street.

The image below was taken looking up through the maze of beams at the large windows at the second (?) floor. The reflected street is Montgomery.

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The image below was taken from Stockton Street near where the Stockton Street tunnel empties out into downtown. The Green Door and the taqueria are on Stockton Street one level below The Tunnel Top bar on Bush Street which passes over the tunnel.

All three businesses have been there for decades though the Green Door has been alternately opened, busted and closed, and then reopened – repeat as the SFPD deems necessary.

This image has long been a favorite of mine because it falls into the category of “every picture tells a story.” It’s a story about physical desires, a narrative of two of the deadly sins, Gluttony and Lust. You can add to the two, the sin of drunkenness. I picture a man getting off work, having a few too many at The Tunnel Top, staggering out and seeing The Green Door and saying “what the hell, why not,” and then coming out of the massage parlor with a sudden craving for food. Make up your own version.

Every now and then I think that I’ve exhausted the photo opportunities in San Francisco. And then I revisit and find something new. And I still haven’t hit most of the districts of The City.

The banner photo was taken from Treasure Island using a neutral density filter and a 31 second exposure.