I returned a couple of days ago from several days photographing fall color in the Sierra Nevada, something I’ve been doing now for quite a few years. At first, not knowing much about this astonishing annual transition, I worked to figure out the “best” places and times to find aspen color — but I worked, as I so often do, by looking around and speculating more than by doing research. I certainly did find the iconic color locations, but my slow and personal process led me to many places that are not necessarily on the “fall color map” in the Sierra.
It also turns out that the “most beautiful spots” are not necessarily the most beautiful spots! The most special places for me are often in odd little locations that I found by some combination of accident, persistence, and guessing — and they have become special partly because of the whole experience of finding and visiting them.
A nearly deserted Chinatown alley lined with trash cans, San Francisco.
On this mid-July morning as I walked from the Caltrain station to the Bay near North Beach, I passed through parts of San Francisco’s Chinatown district. I was there early enough that many of the shops on the short section of Grant Street that I visited were not open, and after making a few photographs there I headed west to Stockton Street where the real action is happening in the early morning. While I’m definitely the outsider here (most people seem to ignore me, though a few seem a bit amused by this guy with the camera), I enjoy visiting and photographing this area far more than the tourist zone down on Grant.
In the morning the place is intensely busy. Trucks line the street and disgorge boxes and boxes of produce and many people seem to be doing their shopping. Crowds line up at the bus stops, and every grocery store and market seems very busy. I don’t take too many photographs, most often focusing on architecture and colors. As I walked along the busy sidewalk and passed this side alley, several things caught my attention. First, unlike Stockton Street, it was almost deserted – a couple of people were walking down the alley and by the time I framed my photograph only one remained. (You’ll have to look closely.) While my first impression was that this was a dilapidated and messy place, upon further thought and observation it is actually very ordered. Considering the number of people in the area and that the alley is used at least partially for loading in and out of shops, there is actually very little litter. Small ramps have been set up in the gutter in a few places and the receptacles are lined up along the sidewalk. I wonder what the meaning is of the two pieces of cardboard stuck behind the pipes on the red wall at the right?
The light was also conducive to shooting here. On this typical San Francisco summer day – e.g. cold and windy and foggy! – the overcast softened the light and allowed it to fill the shadows and intensify some of the colors.
