Posts Tagged: street photography

Memorial at an Eagles hall…

The first Sunday in April, I went to a memorial at an Eagles hall for a man a I never knew.

Memorial at an Eagles hall...
Brisbane, California, April 2022

My wife and I went together. She had known the man, and so had my brother-in-law who was also at the memorial.

Memorial at an Eagles hall...
Brisbane, California, April 2022

My brother-in-law actually served as the quote-unquote minister for the event, and he said some kind words of remembrance for a man who was universally liked by everyone in the room.

Memorial at an Eagles hall...
Brisbane, California, April 2022

I did what I always do at the many memorials I’ve attended at the Eagles hall for people I didn’t know or barely knew.

Memorial at an Eagles hall...
Brisbane, California, April 2022

I wandered around and shot photos.

Memorial at an Eagles hall...
Brisbane, California, April 2022

I’m not an Eagles member, but I have friends who are. And I know other members on a social basis. And, like my wife, I knew some of the folks who knew the deceased, the man we were there to honor.

Memorial at an Eagles hall...
Brisbane, California, April 2022

It was a somber event, but it wasn’t entirely dour and funereal. I talked to a lot of people, and photographed them, and that was fun for me.

But as I was leaving after an hour and a half I remember hoping that when I’m dead there’s 55 or 60 people who remember me fondly enough to gather together at an Eagles hall on a Sunday afternoon and talk about what a good man I was.

Photographed at the Eagles hall, FOE Aerie #3255, in Brisbane, California on April 3rd, 2022.

See the entire collection of 33 photographs on Flickr.

See my other work on Flickr and Instagram.

The dancing kind

The dancing kind

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of woman

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dances with her daughter

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in the street

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on the sidewalk

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with joy

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with abandon

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both of them radiant

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like champions of love.

(Photographed in San Francisco, California in February, 2022. See my other work here and here.)

Glass pipe sidewalk

This is a short, simple story. I was on my way to my favorite discount supermarket in San Francisco when I encountered these three guys on the sidewalk at a bus stop, and a couple of the gents decided to smoke some meth.

They were really nice guys, though, so don’t get the wrong impression.

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The fellow who initially pulled out the glass pipe wore a wrist band that suggested he’d recently been a patient in a hospital someplace. While a few people at the bus stop looked on with obvious disdain, he pulled out his lighter and sparked up his gear…

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Then he took a few drags from it. He sucked on it like an infant feeding from a milk bottle because his mother’s breasts had run dry…

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Then he passed the glass to his pal, who had been patiently waiting to take a few hits himself. The big fellow on the end didn’t partake, he just kept chatting with me about the plumbing business he was saving money to open up one day. He and his companion were sitting on a huge audio speaker and I have no idea why…

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And’s that’s pretty much it. Despite the fact that these gents were smoking hard drugs at a moderately-busy bus stop, It was all rather low-key and somehow calm and civilized.

Like I said, they were really nice guys.

(Photographed in San Francisco, California in October, 2021. See my other work here and here.)

Her daddy died the day before

I was on Sunnydale Avenue in San Francisco recently at weekly food bank, working on a project of mine about people and community outreach during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. And this beautiful little girl caught my eye because of the bright pink braids she had flowing from her hair.

The girl was with a friend of mine, who is also the girl’s godmother, and she had no problems with me taking a few pictures of the girl and her striking hair.

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As I was lifting my camera to my face to begin snapping, my friend told the girl “Hold it up, let him see it.” What she meant was the laminate hanging from the girl’s neck, a family photo featuring the girl and her father right in the center of it. The girl’s father had his arms around her.

I looked a question at my friend, who said to me “Her daddy died yesterday. He got shot.”

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Ten minutes later I was carrying a box of food bank vegetables to the girl’s nearby apartment, and I asked my friend what happened. She told me the girl’s father was shot dead nearby when he was trying to score some weed from a man who had a gun and who was just too crazy to be dealing weed at that particular moment in time.

I looked at my friend and asked her “Who dies over weed anymore? It’s fucking weed, it’s legal.”

Neither one of us had an answer. Then she walked into the girl’s apartment, and I put the box of vegetables on the trunk of a car parked in front of it and left.

(Photographed in San Francisco, California in August, 2021. See my other work here and here.)

Roadside repairs

During the first week of May I was driving from San Francisco into Brisbane, California along Bayshore Boulevard, and I encountered this interesting scene…

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It turns out that the man with the beard was driving along Bayshore Boulevard too, but the upper control arm on the driver’s side of his big old car snapped and he had to immediately pull over and call an emergency mechanic.

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So while the mechanic worked away, I snapped a few photos and the young man and I talked for a few minutes. He showed me the groove out on the street that his damaged car had cut into the pavement as he pulled it out of traffic.

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He was a nice young fellow, very warm and open.

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The mechanic was a nice guy too, but very busy.

(Photographed in Brisbane, California on May 04, 2021. See my other work here and here.)

In darkness…

In darkness
we cannot
shine a light,
so we
undervalue
our own radiance.
We pick locks
we cannot see,
taste foods
we cannot smell,
and gossip about things
we do not know.
We enslave
ourselves
and blame
others for our capture.

Christmas Eve at the 380 offramp, part 1...
San Bruno California, December 2020

We stop loving
our lives
and blame
others for our cold empty.
In darkness
we dance
with the children
we used to be
and wonder why,
now we’ve grown,
we don’t dance
any better
than we used to.

(Photographed in San Bruno, California on Christmas Eve, 2020. See my other work here.)

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...
Brisbane, California, Thanksgiving Day 2020

A suspension of color in my deceased father-in-law’s living room.

The calm of the world as the sun comes up...
Brisbane, California, Thanksgiving Day 2020

The calm of the world as the sun comes up.

A turkey at my neighbor's house...
Brisbane, California, Thanksgiving Day 2020

A turkey at my neighbor’s house.

The turkey goes into the oven...
Brisbane, California, Thanksgiving Day 2020

Our turkey goes into the oven.

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The flag and a family on the high street.

Last-minute grocery trip for daughter and father...
Brisbane, California, Thanksgiving Day 2020

Last-minute grocery trip for daughter and father.

My wife would like to show a happy world to everyone...
Brisbane, California, Thanksgiving Day 2020

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.)

Saturday, at the edge of the world

My wife and I,
imprisoned with each other these past one million days,
decided on a Saturday morning
to hope in the car and go see the edge of the world.
(I meant ‘hop’ but the effect is the same.)

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When we got there
I looked out
at the crest of the ocean,
the horizon it made,
and I wondered if
there were people in Japan
looking from their edge of the world
who couldn’t see me either.

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It’s probable.
It’s likely.
My wife and I blew
the dreamers on Japanese coasts a kiss,
and laughed because we love
that the ocean is here
at the edge of the world
even though we rarely come to see it.

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And then I thought
in 31 years
of bad careers, drink, and madness in California,
she has been my sun.
My sun more than the actual fucking Sun.
And all the bad
was erased
standing on the edge of the world with her.

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Everything bad
in my life, in our lives,
was all worth enduring
to be able after 31 years
to stand at the edge of the world with her.

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And I told her that.
And she kissed me.
And I knew, once again,
we would be okay.

(Photographed at Thornton Beach, Daly City, California in November, 2020. See my other work here.)

The psilocybin skateboard

He said

he was bored

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and, the day being hot and slow,

I understood that.

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And he said

he was on mushrooms

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and, being a recovering alcoholic,

I smiled quietly at that.

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(Photographed in Brisbane, California in September, 2020. See my other work here.)

And, lo, there was a bird

And, lo, there was a bird

outside the picture window

of the living room

where my father-in-law died.

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It was a day of peace

and happiness.

I was entertaining a friend

with dinner in the living room,

and the bird was

just being its bird self.

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It had nothing to do

with what happened

to my father-in-law

in that living room,

but being there

made me think of him

and whether in some way

he was in the bird

and looking in

on the home of the life

he left behind.

(Photographed in Brisbane, California in September, 2020. See my other work here.)

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