Posts in Category: South San Francisco
Convenience
I’ve shopped in a lot of 7-11s in my life.
Maybe you have too.
I only started photographing people I’d encounter at 7-11 a few years ago. I was a public school substitute teacher in 2016 and 2017, and I used to stop by whatever store was on my way to work for a Dr Pepper and some kind of donut for breakfast.
I’m not a school teacher any longer, but I still treasure my 7-11 adventures. See more of the people I met at the convenience store here. I hope you enjoy them.
(Photographed in South San Francisco, California in September and November, 2016 and in May, 2017. 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.
Ink jets and heart attacks
She ran the dead’s carpeting
throughout the office supply stacks.
She wanted a toy, not pencils nor tacks.
She was bright, shiny cuteness
in an Office Depot®,
or was it an OfficeMax®?
You know,
wherever the corporate types go
for overpriced ink and free heart attacks…
(At Staples in South San Francisco, California, February 2016. See my other work here and here.)
The man who laughed t‘ai-chi
On my way to work this past Monday, I drove past an older man doing t‘ai-chi exercise by the side of a particularly busy street in South San Francisco. I broke several traffic laws turning my car around so that I could pull up to the curb in front of him to take a photograph. Luckily, I got to him just in time to capture this exuberant expression.
I’ve looked for the old man each subsequent morning since this encounter, but haven’t seen him…
(Hillside Boulevard near Lincoln Street, South San Francisco, California 2017)
I’ve been seeing red
I don’t know what it is, but the past several days I’ve been noticing people who are dressed in red. It’s pleasing, but odd, as I typically never consciously emphasize any particular color when a scene has caught my eye and I decide it’s worth a photograph. Perhaps it’s my subconscious manifesting the abundant anger I’ve been feeling about my wife’s recent medical traumas and the death of my cat, among other things.
Nevertheless, I take photographs to celebrate moments in life that appeal to me and that you might also cherish, or at least find interesting. So here’s some glorious red, though the color is not so glorious as the people wearing it…
A woman crossing Webster Street while Fell Street traffic zooms by in San Francisco on March 28th.
An stylish youth in Geneva Avenue traffic near Mission Street in San Francisco on March 29th.
At a Safeway in South San Francisco on March 31st.
(San Francisco and South San Francisco, California 2017)
Destination suggested but still unknown
At an on-ramp leading to The 101 on Airport Boulevard in South San Francisco…
(South San Francisco, California 2017)
Tiny woman, big butt
Smoking an elongated cigarette on El Camino Real in front of the Kaiser Permanente hospital…
(South San Francisco, California 2017)
Spaceman and Mickey pants…
My wife has been in the hospital for almost two weeks. Thankfully, she should be home in a couple of days. It’s a dicey thing shooting photos in an hospital. Ethically (and morally, and legally), hospitals have very justifiably strict rules about whom and where you can take pictures. You can’t infringe upon a person’s privacy, nor endanger anyone’s patient confidentiality.
Fortunately, today I encountered a couple of good sports who allowed me to photograph them. I’m and grateful and happy to have the opportunity to showcase their visual distinctiveness…
An hospital technician in airborne disease precautionary headgear…
A fellow in Mickey Mouse pants who I happened to see in an hospital hallway…
Kaiser Permanente, South San Francisco, California 2017
Kaiser, my baby
I’m a lousy husband. I find it impossible to hang around my wife’s hospital room for hours watching her writhe in pain while the nurses and her doctor wait for her condition to stabilize. When it does, they’ll determine if she needs surgery. In the meantime, I’ve been bringing her things that she needs, and drinking too much when I’m home. This is all new and overwhelming to me. My wife’s the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever known, and I can’t take away her pain. I can’t do anything at all right now but love her.
And take a few pictures, to maybe make some good come of this in the form of my inadequate art…
South San Francisco and the El Camino Real from the roof of the Kaiser Permanente parking garage.
Colma Creek from the roof of the parking garage.
Hallway on my wife’s ward.
Hospital gift shop couture.
Kaiser Permanente, South San Francisco, California 2017
My wife is in the hospital on her birthday…
She entered the hospital last night, for an ailment that is hers to disclose. Not life-threatening, but perhaps life-changing. She’s the best person I’ve ever known, so it was agony to see her writhing and shifting for hours in emergency room pain. I would have taken that nerve-lashing unto myself if I could.
And today is her 63rd birthday. I should be making her a favorite dinner, but she’s in a hospital bed on Opiate Street. “Time’s passing so slow” morphine-she said to me this morning. We both have less time than we used to have, but its savory quality has increased as we’ve aged.
I could’ve grown old with myself. I will likely grow old longer because of her. Not knowing what to do, and being a poor hospital tourist, I took some photographs when my wife didn’t need my attention. There will likely be more; but on her birthday when she can eat no cake on the inpatient ward, these will do…
The admitting technician was a fine fellow of compassionate demeanor.
A dinosaur-child in the hallway as my wife was moved from the ER to her room.
No names on the screen means no pain in a hallway for healing professionals.
She’s in bed and waiting, and monitoring time.
Kaiser Permanente, South San Francisco, California 2017