So last week, I finally put my Holga through its paces with extensive shooting in San Francisco, and it being a Holga, it decides to break, so a good portion of my prints are in bad shape from the negatives being damaged…

Oh wait…

Did I forget to mention a week-long trip to San Francisco?

I can’t say exactly why I’ve kept it such a secret from everyone, but I really went out of my way to do exactly that. Just needed a little privacy I guess. Sometimes, I like the idea of disappearing into oblivion without anyone knowing my whereabouts. Nobody but a handful of my closest friends and family had a clue until the news of my being there finally spilled out on my facebook page the day I was coming home.

If you’ve read my last post about San Francisco, you’ll know there was a reason I chose San Francisco as a destination. While there, I knew I wanted a distinctly non-touristic approach to my visit. As much so as I could manage.

So I spent most of my time wandering. Getting to know the public transit system, the locals (including the “weirdos”), the food, the beach, the piers, the micro-climates, the views, the architecture, the quiet spots, the busy ones, and on and on. I had no plan when I headed that way. My plan was to come up with one on the fly and feel the city rather than just visit it.

This is very different for me. I generally feel much more comfortable with a plan whenever I’m doing something new.

But as with anything in life, force yourself outside of your comfort zone and wonderful things happen.

So now that I’ve experienced it, would I live in San Francisco?

Yes.

In a heartbeat.

Am I going to?

Probably not. I’ll explain later.

Here’s some of the Holga shots I liked. They’re not necessarily in chronological order. I arranged them in the way that I felt would flow the best from one image to the next.

More to come soon, including iPhone photos.

A nice family-oriented neighborhood on my way to the beach. I took a really long walk along the Golden Gate Park to get to the beach and noticed block after block of this beautiful maze of wires.

Ahhhhh, the beach… One of the most relaxing times during my stay. Watching people write, dance, practicing karate moves, listening to music, cuddling with a significant other, doing Tai Chi, or, like me, wandering aimlessly.

The Golden Gate Park. Watching someone photograph the cherry blossoms.

Haight Ashbury, where all the hippies hang out. There was a distinctly different vibe there than anywhere else in the city. Like many other places in San Francisco, Haight Ashbury is a world all its own.

It was also the only place where I was offered drugs by five separate people in the space of, and I’m not exaggerating, 90 seconds! That made me laugh. I kept turning them down but they just kept popping out at me!

There was nothing particularly exciting to me about the “Crookedest Street in the World”. Except that view to North Beach. I only wished I had a zoom lens so I could do it justice.

Like it or not, there are two things you simply can’t ignore about San Francisco. Hippies as mentioned above, and gays. Ignoring either would be like ignoring the film industry in Hollywood. It’s just not reasonable.

And I’m sorry, but gay people are for the most part, extremely nice. That or in the gay community, I’m extremely handsome! I didn’t need to be gay to enjoy this part of town.

Oh and hey, I figured out why the Holga kept giving me such blurry images!! Turns out, the switch from “Normal” to “Bulb” (Bulb is for long exposures – you would need a tripod for it to look right), which of course is at the bottom of the camera (because where else would you put a critical switch to operating a camera?!), kept sliding over to Bulb without my doing anything. So every time I would prepare to take a shot, I learned to check and make sure it was still set to “Normal” since I wasn’t carrying a tripod with me.

This next shot, well I forgot to check. But man, look at that street’s angle!! Yes, walking around San Francisco is absolutely exhausting on the steep hills.

The “worst” day, weather-wise, was also my favorite. I had already walked across the Golden Gate Bridge a few days before, but it was raining hard that day and the wind was blowing like crazy, so naturally, I had to go hang out at a pier across from the bridge. Just to be alone and away from any crowds for a little while.

I will never be able to express the intensity of that half hour of my life. The sound of the waves raging beneath my feet, the tiny surfers in the distance taking advantage of the weather, the wind blowing like no other and the utter solitude on the pier with only some seagulls to keep me company…

Spectacular.