Nostalgia

Last Sunday, I went on a photo walk through SOMA put on by CaliberSF, and hosted by the SOMAarts cultural center. First off, it was an impressive showing -- somewhere north of 75 people, all marching around SOMA and then back for pizza and beers after we cooled off. The biggest accomplishment to me was getting all those people together, herding them through the streets, then successfully getting them back in one place. I thought for sure we would have lost someone on the way.

I noticed a number of people there I knew -- Brad from CitySnaps, my friend Martin from work, and the omnipresent Frank Chu. Really big crowd, but everybody was having a lot of fun.

The walk was great -- a very nice opportunity to meet people, explore some parts of SOMA I might never visit (some sketchier than others...), and also see some local street art which was really fantastic. My only real complaint was that SOMA was a little short on people who weren't also photographers. It just felt a little dead to me, particularly when I compared it to walking around the Mission or especially down near Market Street. Less opportunity for spontaneity than I like, too. Whenever we'd see a person, we'd have a dozen people jumping out to take their photo -- which in itself might be a scene, but not necessarily mine. Still, I appreciate any opportunity to walk around the streets taking pictures, so I had a blast.

Of the set, I'd say this one is my favorite:



I came upon these prints arranged in the dashboard of a car near the Defenestration building on Sixth and Howard. It was a very modern car -- so much that my other shots of the scene with a bit of dashboard were a bit to 'clashing' for my taste. And the angle I really wanted was impossible because of glare. So, I had a notion and broke out my 135mm f/2 and set it to near wide open, which is roughly equivalent to turning the dial to dreamy.

It's a hazy little bit of voyeurism of somebody's else's nostalgia, caught marching around on a lazy Sunday with an army of photographers -- I like it.