San Francisco/Sacramento

[CMoore]

I am right between the two.
I lived in SF for almost 20 years. Now that I have a camera(s) again, I wish I was still there.
If you are into "Street Photography" you really need to be in a Big(ish) city.
You guys that are in:
NYC
Phili
LA
Boston
Chicago
etc etc
are very fortunate.
I live in a place of 25k people. There is nowhere near the Hustle and Bustle, or the number of characters, or just the sheer bulk of humanity and architecture that are required for street photos.
We do have good opportunities for landscape...and there are trains. We are on one of the smaller, Union Pacific, main lines (the original Trans Continental Railroad). We also have AMAZING sunrise and sunset opportunities for people of color.
I JUST bought a Mamiya RB65, so maybe next year I might be able to do a landscape attempt.
Truth be told, I have much more of Garry Winogrand in my blood than I do Ansel Adams.
Presently repainting and flooring our house, and converting a bedroom to (my first) darkroom. I hope to be able to get over to San Francisco on the weekends after it is all done.
For me, there is something Very Therapeutic/Meditative about "Street" type photography in SF. There is A LOT in a relatively small area. Hope to get there many times next year.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, then you should already be aware that getting in and out of Frisco on the weekend can be utter hell unless you time the bridge correctly. At
least the Critical Mess bicycle anarchists are less likely to clog the arteries and avenues on weekends. You get the point - I absolutely hate driving
there until I get past downtown. My office window overlooked the Bay, so I could often just zip right across the bridge for downtown photo supplies
during lunch hour, while on other days the bridge backup might be two hours long, which I obviously didn't even attempt. Now it's usually just plain
bad. On weekends you need to get across before mid-morning or risk serious frustration. A bigger frustration was encountering things like building
demolition, wanting to photograph this with a view camera, and realizing that unless I wanted my gear tripped over and ruined, I'd better stick with a
Nikon. But I'll never be another Winnogrand. Give me the quiet of the hills of the East Bay or Marin any day instead the chaos of Frisco.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I am right between the two.
I lived in SF for almost 20 years. Now that I have a camera(s) again, I wish I was still there.
If you are into "Street Photography" you really need to be in a Big(ish) city.
You guys that are in:
NYC
Phili
LA
Boston
Chicago
etc etc
are very fortunate.
I live in a place of 25k people. There is nowhere near the Hustle and Bustle, or the number of characters, or just the sheer bulk of humanity and architecture that are required for street photos.
We do have good opportunities for landscape...and there are trains. We are on one of the smaller, Union Pacific, main lines (the original Trans Continental Railroad). We also have AMAZING sunrise and sunset opportunities for people of color.

Actually, that's a perception that's all in your head. Sure you don't have quite the quantity and variety of "characters" doing odd things in a small town, but the people you do have are probably pretty interesting if you give them a chance, and being a small town, in some ways it's probably easier to get access to those people because they'll know who you are. Unless they know you as the local scary weirdo, it's a big plus to being able to photograph them because they'll trust you more.

 

[CMoore]

I would not call it a perception...I lived in both places. We have ONE Main Street (called Main Street).
I have taken quite a few pics, but how many times can you walk the same streets and water way.?
A big city offers an ever changing stage of actors and backdrops that a small town just does not have.
Last weekend I was at a baseball game...the local Babe Ruth League, and shot some interesting (I think) photos through a knee-level gap in the back stop. That was 5 miles from my house... that same 5 miles in SF offers a HUGE Variety of photos that a place like Suisun just cannot compete with.
Like I say, we have beautiful Sunrise/Sunset opportunities...along with some trains and other rural stuff.
But for "Street Photography" nothing compares to a big city.

Yeah...Well Aware of the traffic. After living there for 20 years, I commuted for 6 years. It was Total Hell. I either drive in at an intelligent time, or I take the Ferry from Vallejo. San Francisco has a Huge Variety for terrain, people, architecture and weather...all in a very Compact and Few Square Miles.
Wish I still had all of my old negatives, I had a few thousand.....lost them all when we moved 2000-2001

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Oh, I would say it is perception. It's the same problem many photographers impose upon themselves - "I can't possibly take good/interesting pictures where I live - nothing is interesting there. I must spend thousands of dollars to travel to foreign lands to take good/interesting pictures". Well, learn to see what's interesting in your hometown, no matter how big/small, and you'll take much better pictures in the foreign land when you do go there. I live in Washington DC, which is a medium-sized city. It would be easy to say that in my neighborhood I've seen it all and there's nothing interesting, I need to go somewhere else. And for a while, I did think that way. Then I started making myself walk around my neighborhood (a ten block radius of my house) and photograph what I saw in that ten block radius. And I started seeing all kinds of things. Now, I take much better pictures when I travel because I've learned to see what's in front of me, at the moment.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Which peripheral burb are you specifically talking about? Vallejo? Anyway... if it's anything downtown SF I prefer to let my wife drive, since she has
a better set of nerves for it. But on her last job there she adjusted her work hours so she commuted in after rush hour, and back over around nine
in the evening. I will agree there's an awful lot of interesting things to photograph. I just don't own any viable street camera system except for Nikon.
Someone did give me a Yashica TLR, but it's hardly worthy of refurbishing. My P67 might work with Delta 3200, but it's mainly a tripod system itself. A Plaubel Makina would sure be nice.

 

[CMoore]

Oh Jeez...Yeah, did not even notice. You use one of those big, giant, "old fashioned" cameras.
Like I said...wish I still had all my negatives, and many of them came from a Canon Sure Shot 80. A pretty decent "street" camera IMHO.
As a matter of fact, all the Canon A Series cameras are a great deal right now.
I have:
2x AE-1P
1x A-1
Last summer I had a tech go through them and make all good. Just finished taking pictures of them, to put up for sale in the classifieds here, and for the life of me, we Cannot Find The Receipts for the CLA's.
They are almost worthless (money wise) without proof of the CLA. John Titterington is looking to see if he can dig up some copies of CLA for me. I may have to donate them to the local college if he can not help me out.......Life.

 

[DREW WILEY]

No, those are my subminiature cameras. What I'd really like to shoot is my 8x10. Large format is practical over on the beach side of town; but in
the crowded areas it's a good way to get your gear smashed while people trip and cuss over it. I have used my Nikon in SF, and do make small little
poetic prints as well as big highly detailed and textured ones. But for architectural subjects per se, a view camera is certainly more versatile. Night
photography has gotten a little dicey for personal safety reasons. You don't want to be under a darkcloth without someone else keeping an eye out!
I'd opt for an Alcatraz trip or the UC campus at night instead, the latter not being totally safe either, but reasonably safe with common sense. I do
own a "Cannon" camera myself - it's the 300EDIF lens on my Pentax 6x7, which certainly resembles a cannon barrel, and is nearly as heavy! I did
some quickie architectural detail shots with it over in Crockett a couple weeks ago, which is a great place to go for interesting people too, along with
nearby Port Costa. Otherwise, my true street lens is the 85/1.4 on my Nikon.

 

[CMoore]

OH...I've never been to Port Costa...will definitely have to check that out. Maybe drive under the bridge and take a look at C&H Sugar as well.
I am not in Vallejo, I am in Suisun...94585

 

[DREW WILEY]

Port Costa is a quirky spot with a heyday brothel turned into a gourmet restaurant, and an old hotel turned into a popular biker bar on weekends -
don't worry, they're all faux hoodlums, not any genuine winged-skull types, but all those choppers lined up against the old building are interesting.
Nice 35mm territory. Lots of pretty trails along the river there, though a bit hot in June. Crockett has even more old buildings, including the sugar
mill, and a fun local artsy/fartsy scene replete with some real interesting characters and friendly retired photographers. Hardly any tourism for such
a cute area, so you won't be tripping over anyone. I'd like to go back with the 8x10 on a rainy day next winter. Done a bit of that on Mare Island.

 

[CMoore]

Great....Appreciate The Info
Thank You.
chip

 

[gone]

Small town photography can work, but it's not the same as in a bigger city, and people can be unfriendly to cameras in smaller towns. Heck, people in smaller towns can be unfriendly, period. There's nothing like the big city sort of anonymity. You can feel more alone in a big town, while in a smaller town you have less privacy for some reason. There you just feel lonely.

Markets are good anywhere, as people are used to our type w/ a camera at the ready. A TLR is your friend. People love them, and no one ever seems threatened by them. S.F. doesn't much interest me for photography anymore, as it is far from the city that I used to live in. The views are still wonderful, but the street characters are not the same, and definitely not as friendly. I would never photograph the homeless as that is a big personal violation of their privacy, and if you look at crowd shots from the 80's and 90's it's clear that things have changed drastically.

 

[CMoore]

I hear you on all counts.
Yeah...in a big city they are use to seeing all kinds of nut-bags...some wannabe Frank/Winogrand is no big deal to city folk.
I moved In there in 1983, and then out in January 2001...so I know what you mean.
My wife was born there in 1960, so she Really Saw it change.
It is still a big city, buy has become much more Gentrified/Homogenized.....much of interest has been torn down to make way for a brain-washed class of ladder-climbing, corporate worker bees, that want to live near the office so they can be a useful cog in the wheel of making a call...taking a call, or reading a letter and sending a letter.
Not that I'm bitter.

 

[darinwc]

I'm in Sacramento. There are only a few landmarks and they just don't have the scale of San Francisco.
But do you want to take the same photos of the same places everyone else does?

I have been able to find some lesser known spots. I am still 'working' them. Trying capture the life.

So go out and find places. Meet people. Do things.
Be happy you can go to SF when you want to get back the big city.

 

[Arklatexian]

Oh, I would say it is perception. It's the same problem many photographers impose upon themselves - "I can't possibly take good/interesting pictures where I live - nothing is interesting there. I must spend thousands of dollars to travel to foreign lands to take good/interesting pictures". Well, learn to see what's interesting in your hometown, no matter how big/small, and you'll take much better pictures in the foreign land when you do go there. I live in Washington DC, which is a medium-sized city. It would be easy to say that in my neighborhood I've seen it all and there's nothing interesting, I need to go somewhere else. And for a while, I did think that way. Then I started making myself walk around my neighborhood (a ten block radius of my house) and photograph what I saw in that ten block radius. And I started seeing all kinds of things. Now, I take much better pictures when I travel because I've learned to see what's in front of me, at the moment.

This reminds me of when I was active in the local photographic society. When things got slow, I would make the statement:"there is nothing worth shooting within 100 miles of my front door". Then the next day, I would go into my backyard and expose several rolls of film (more if shooting 120) or maybe 20 sheets of 4x5 of leaves, small wild-flowers, aphids, i.e. all kinds of stuff. Then the folks at the club would want to know where I went to get these shiots. I never told them. If they were so "uncreative" to not recognize opportunities around their own homes, I did not think it my job to enlighten them. I must say that sooner or later most found out my "secret" and seemed to enjoy their hobby even more. ....Regards!