San Francisco's Camera Obscura - a lighthouse that attracted photographers, not sailors. 2009 photo by Snappy-San
San Francisco was and is a photographic mecca. Few other cities can claim as deep and profound a well of photographic history, culture, personalities and love for the photographic image as this city.
The people and places are legend. The San Francisco Art Institute. SF MOMA. San Francisco State where Welpott taught. Henry Wessell. Ruth Bernhard. Michael Kenna. Judy Dater. Linda Connor. Group f/64. Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston. There was the Fulton Gallery down on Union street. And the Vision Gallery and the Fraenkel Gallery which exists to this day. San Francisco Camerawork.
Add to all this the hundreds and hundreds and likely thousands of lesser known lights who lived and photographed in San Francisco and the Bay Area and who made contributions to photographic art, large and small.
San Francisco 1977 Henry Wessel
On his return from Massachusetts and heartbreak, Snappy-San lands in San Francisco’s Marina District. He crashes at the apartment of two close friends, “D” and “S.” for possibly two or three months. The apartment is quite spiffy – roomy, full of light and furnished with fairly nice bookcases, bed, sofas, rattan easy chairs and other items much of it stolen from a Daly City apartment complex.
There are many parties. Here’s a moment from one of them. Wait! I think I can hear Jean Luc Ponty, or is that Tower of Power playing in the background?
The light in the Marina District is gorgeous. And the opportunities for pictures are plentiful. There are whitewashed buildings, a blinding and blue sea, the Golden Gate Bridge.
In spite of many distractions, Snappy-San becomes a photographer in San Francisco. As these things tend to go, it takes quite a while for his images to exhibit any staying power. But San Francisco is a magic place for Snappy-San as it has been for so many others. And soon enough, Snappy-San’s pictures begin to show promise.
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miyako san (c) snappy-san 1978
There are four phases to Snappy-San’s photographic life in San Francisco.
Phase I The Marina District
Phase II The Sunset District {A Hasselblad, Snappy-San’s First Darkroom}
Phase III Self Education {Harry Calahan, Robert Frank, Andre Kertesz}
Phase IV City College of San Francisco {Shooting San Francisco’s Cable Car Reconstruction Project}
