Posts Tagged: Midtown Market
This past Thanksgiving
In the time of coronavirus, my wife and I didn’t do much on Thanksgiving Day 2020 but stay home and cook for ourselves. We didn’t even watch the Macy’s parade. Cooking Thanksgiving feast for two people, which included an 11-pound turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and a persimmon pie, was a surprisingly time-consuming endeavor.
Still, I did get out briefly a couple of times during the day and shot this collection of photographs. Enjoy…
A suspension of color in my deceased father-in-law’s living room.
The calm of the world as the sun comes up.
A turkey at my neighbor’s house.
Our turkey goes into the oven.
The flag and a family on the high street.
Last-minute grocery trip for daughter and father.
My wife would like to show a happy world to everyone.
(Photographed in Brisbane, California on Thanksgiving Day, 2020. I hope yours was happy and safe. See my other work here.)
How we get to the snacks
So, the coronavirus, yeah. How are you holding up? It’s crazy out there, right? Not like ‘violence in the streets’ crazy, not yet, but nutty enough. I really hope you’ve got enough savings and food and family support and job security to get though this as painlessly as possible.
I’ve been going out every day, mostly just to my local grocery store a few blocks from my house to get Dr Pepper and cigarettes. And I started a little project photographing people wearing masks, at food stores and elsewhere, to protect themselves from viral infection. It’s not a world-changing project, but it’s something to keep me occupied while we’re all mostly stuck at home all day.
So I hope you enjoy the photos here, and the growing number of photographs I’m compiling here. Thanks for having a look.
At a Grocery Outlet in San Francisco
Waiting in line outside a Nijiya Market in San Francisco
At Midtown Market here in Brisbane, California
(San Francisco and Brisbane, California, March, 2020. See my other work here and here.)
She took a moment to compose herself…
During the coronavirus panic I’ve been going out every day, mostly to my local grocery bodega here in Brisbane, California for cigarettes and Dr Pepper. And even though my town is literally right next to San Francisco, sharing a city and county line, folks here have been nice, calm, and collected. No freaking out or hysterical behavior, at least not that I’ve seen.
The lady in my photographs here is a good example. It was sunny and in the high 60s on March 19th when she came walking up the street while I was loitering in front of the grocery store having a smoke. I loved her lace dress and her glittery sandals, and asked her for a few photos.
And she cheerfully agreed. But as you can see in these photos and the complete sequence here, she took a moment to compose herself. But she looked kind of great doing it…
(Brisbane, California, March, 2020. See my other work here and here.)
Let’s skip life
It’s how we practice flying…
Some people
are able
to just
skip through life
and look good
doing it…
(Brisbane, California, April 2019. See my other work here and here.)
My week of shooting, 24 March 2019
Codename: Homeless Dancing Albinism
Photographically speaking, I had a great week. It was full of the brief but enriching encounters with people that drive home to me why I’m a photojournalist. Even in the most mundane places, and my life right now encompasses a LOT of mundane places, I observe instances of friendliness, open-heartedness, and joy that keep me hopeful that all of us just might be okay if we don’t burn it all down…
- On St. Patrick’s Day, an affable homeless man and the dollar bill I’d just given him at a freeway off-ramp in San Francisco…
- Tuesday at my local grocery store I was on line with a lady and her dog, so I did what I do and photographed them both…
- On Friday while having a quick bite at Costco I shared a table with this little girl with albinism and her mother…
- Later on Friday I stopped by the Brisbane Eagle’s hall for a memorial to a guy I barely knew. But the dancing was good, and this kid owned the dance floor…
- On Saturday it was a nosh at McDonald’s, and an encounter with this cool teenager who smiled despite the new braces on his teeth…
That’s it for this week. Until next seek see my other work here and here.
Remember: people and the world are more beautiful, odd, and interesting than you think, you just have to stop and look long enough to notice.
Textbook dog
Here, take a minute to look at these photographs of a textbook case of dog. Her name is Allie Anne and she belongs to a friend of mine here in Brisbane, California.
There, isn’t that better? This is cheering you up a bit, isn’t it?
I thought so.
Seriously, looking at these photos has got to be better than whatever dismal and infuriating news reports you were reading about the fucking moron in the White House who is systematically tearing our country down and apart with his stupidity, ignorance, and racism.
Yeah, I know. It’s continually depressing and hard to summon either courage or hope.
Hey, I know, I’ll look at the dog with you. Let’s be calm for a few minutes and just sit here together and look at the happy dog.
(Brisbane, California, January 2018. See my other work here and here.)
The Sky
It rained a little bit this morning.
Not much,
just a few enlarged drops,
smacking the hood of my car.
Just enough rain
for the sky to
let the Earth know
that the Sky can kill it
anytime it wants.
But the Sky keeps the Earth around
like that coaster on the dining room table,
the coaster you got in Vegas
when you were just drunk enough
to win $100 on video poker.
It cost you $200
to win that $100,
and that’s how the Sky feels about the Earth.
We banish it
and frustrate it
and fill it with
our piss
and our vinegar.
The Sky is not our cloud atlas,
(The Sky really hated that book)
and it is not the take-away menu
at your corner dipshit combini.
The Sky is
your beauty and your love.
The Sky is
the only way you’ll ever get to Mars.
The Sky is
a chest of drawers full of only bright things,
marvelous things,
things of silk and satin and Japanese whimsy.
The Sky
is your mother
and your father
and we are rather cross with you right now
and need you to knock that shit off.
Gravity bites
Snack time for an energetic dog in the parking lot at Brisbane’s grocery store…
(Brisbane, California 2016)
One need not catch them all
I’m not a fan of the Pokémon franchise, I don’t play the mobile game, and don’t intend to start doing so. Still, without even trying at all I encountered a lively, free-range Pokémon whilst he was buying afterschool snacks at my local grocery store…
(Midtown Market, Brisbane, California 2016. Also published on Scholars & Rogues.)
Incongruous mouthfuls
She was chewing on French pastry, he had her pacifier in his mouth. I’m not a dad so I don’t know how these things work, but the incongruity of it was surprising and delightful…
(Midtown Market, Brisbane, California 2016. Published with additional commentary on Scholars and Rogues.)