Posts in Category: People

Praise the lord, pass the steak sauce

I was photographing a wedding dinner at Original Joe’s in North Beach. If you go, order the veal piccata. It’s fantastic. Anyway, it was hard not to notice these six nuns as they walked by the table where my wife and I were awaiting our meal. Right after the waiter handed these ladies their menus, I walked up to their table and said “Sisters, I’ve never seen this many nuns seated at a table in a public restaurant. May I take a picture of all of you?”

They were fine with that. The eldest nun, the woman third from the left near the middle of the picture, even joked with me, saying in a heavy Eastern European accent “if you take our picture you’ll break your camera.” Well, that didn’t happen, fortunately, and I guess I should praise meaty Jesus for it.

Original Joe's, North Beach, San Francisco 2016

(San Francisco 2016)

Shimbashi disparity

In SL Square outside Shimbashi Station in Tokyo, there’s an outdoor smoking area cordoned off by a low wall and decorative metalwork. There’s no point in wasting words here on social commentary. The photograph tells you everything you need to know…

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(Shimbashi,Tokyo 2015)

Cold stone home

On a warm late September day they had staked out a spot in front of the Shinjuku Station A8 exit. He ate while she seemed to monitor their surroundings and the passersby, like she were guarding him so he could eat undisturbed. Their bags and overall appearances gave the impression that they weren’t just another couple out shopping. The step they sat upon was their cold stone home for the day, and they’d probably be moving on when Tokyo cooled down in the evening.

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(Shinjuku, Tokyo 2013)

Balloonery

At the Spring Open Studios in the Hunters Point Shipyard, purple balloons were de rigueur for the day as markers for signs and chairs in the parking lot…

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(Hunters Point, San Francisco 2016)

Dog day

While running errands today, I stopped at Brisbane’s laundromat and grocery story respectively. This town loves dogs, and I’ve been shooting and compiling pictures of people with their dogs for a themed book I want to do. Here are two pictures I took today for that project…

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Mike and Sassy at the laundromat.

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Letitia and Romeo at the grocery store.

(Brisbane, California, April 2016)

Questionable

Physically handicapped, or afflicted with cancer, or merely very intoxicated, I didn’t have the chance to discretely ask why this man was in this wheelchair on a Tokyo skid row shōtengai. His friends in the background didn’t want me around him, but I shot this photograph anyway with my camera under my armpit while his guardians were briefly distracted. And I left quickly after taking it. Ethically this is a questionable picture, and I’ve never been entirely comfortable that I shot it. I’ve debated myself as to whether this photograph stole some of this man’s dignity, an issue of justifiable importance among photojournalists and street photographers concerning the destitute and the homeless.

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I’ve concluded that this man, in the circumstances in which I encountered him, really didn’t have much dignity in the first place. That does not necessarily justify this photograph’s existence, and I still argue with myself about it. But what this picture shows about a dark side of Tokyo life is inherently important, the kind of thing people wish to ignore but need to see. So I may forever have problems with this photograph, and you may really dislike it, but I stand by it.

(Nihonzutsumi, Tokyo, October 2013)

The grief motorist

His name is Michael and he was sitting in his car on Dubuque Avenue in South San Francisco, separated by a K-rail barrier from the spot on Highway 101 where his cousin Odalys was killed. He visits the spot from time to time, smoking cheap, fragrant cigars and staring through his exhaled smoke at the passing traffic while wondering how his cousin ended up on foot on the 101 where a car hit her and took her life. He says the cops still don’t know; after three and a half years the case is still open. Michael thinks foul play may have been involved. He misses Odalys very much and just wants to know why she died.

Michael got out of his car for this photograph, and to graciously give a summary of his story…

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(South San Francisco, California, April 2016)