Strike a Pose

One of the pieces of advice I got for my portrait class is that I should embrace my inner Director.

Less charitable observers might refer to this as my inner fascist.

I saw this guy coming by and I loved the character of his face and the profile of his upper body set against the building. So, I gestured with my camera and shouted something like, "Strike a pose!". Like any good model, he gave me more than I bargained for. ;)

Up in the Sky

Cheer SF is some sort of cheerleading organizations for adults in SF. They keep showing up at Pride and engaging in elaborate acrobatics -- which really makes for some interesting compositions (how often do you see people flung into the air on Market Street?).

Designing Women

Apologies for the lengthy delay in updating my blog -- I was finishing up portrait work for my class, went on a three week road trip, and then I've been catching up since then.

Every year in San Francisco, we have a ginormous Pride Parade. It's an amazing event, in part because its roots in a celebration of political freedom lead to a lot of personal expression in a lot of areas out on the street. I've taken some of my favorite portraits there, and I look forward to it every year.

The challenges in photographing Pride are manifest: Along with the general mob scene, for 3/3 years running the light has been scorching and cloudless once it jumps over the tops of the buildings on Market Street. The solution to all these problems is to show up early, before the parade starts, and just wander around to catch the early morning chaos.

The bad news for me is that I thought taking Caltrain was a good idea. It was thirty minutes late (swarming with parade goers), and they didn't bother to run an early train this year. So, I only had about ten minutes before the parade started -- but that's where I shot this.

Taking photos of mannequins in storefronts is normally a trap for photographers. I don't get a lot out of it, and I'm generally not moved. This scene, though, worked for me in a way that was unexpected -- and it was the first shot from Pride this year that I liked.