I drove to Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland this past weekend, intending to look for street photos there, but when I arrived, I saw there were lots of booths set up around the shore of Lake Merritt. Apparently, every weekend since the pandemic started, this has been taking place: kind of an ad hoc street [...]
I was walking around Balboa Park in San Diego near sunset, looking for street photos, and finding nothing worth shooting. I took one last walk down the main pathway and, at the end, found a woman practicing what I later found out, by talking to her, are her circus routines. In a strong eastern European [...]
I went into Oakland this past Sunday, more to get out of the house than with any specific photo plans. I drove downtown and began walking around the area of Broadway and 14th through 18th. I came across this young man painting a mural, talked to him for couple of minutes, then asked to take [...]
I had an "assignment" from a group of photographers I meet with to take three street portraits. I went to a couple of locations in the past few weeks, but didn't come away with any portraits I liked. In one case, I didn't get any at all. So I went to the Embarcadero in San [...]
This is another event where street photography is easier than usual. Lots of people are milling about, and most aren't paying any attention to you. I got there early, before 9 a.m., when the light was coming from a low angle. I looked for compositions like this, but never found a great background. The front-lighting [...]
I got many images I liked from this march, mainly because I learned some helpful lessons from shooting previous marches: If you can get in the middle of the march and walk backwards, shooting people's faces, the photos have a lot more impact than ones you get standing on the sidelines. A bigger or brighter [...]
I went into San Francisco late in the afternoon (3:30) last week to do some street photography. The challenge was trying to use my normal street settings in low light. I normally dial in f/11, 1/250s, Auto ISO, and focus at 6 feet on my 35mm lens—but very quickly, as the light disappeared, I had [...]
At the fair, there are thousands people in leather and chains, with tattoos, who are showing plenty of skin, so you think you're going to easily get lots of keepers. Doesn't work out that way—at least not for me. I arrived around 11, when the fair opens, found a decent background, and stayed there for [...]
Last Sunday the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District held an event in San Francisco called Fiesta de las Americas to "celebrate the independence of various Latin American countries and commemorate the culture, arts and music found from Patagonia to the Artic Circle." It was in the Mission District on 24th Street between Bryant and Folsom. At [...]
Along with the Embarcadero, Market St. is my favorite location for street photography in San Francisco. It's always busy and there's always a range of people, including shoppers, tourists, businesspeople, performers and others. I was in the city on Thursday to see a photo-related movie (Jay Myself) and stayed after to shoot around Civic Center [...]