On this date ten years ago, my son Zachary and I rolled into San Francisco in the early hours of the morning and I began my life as a Californian. (Zach would return to Michigan a little more than a month later.) I haven’t had much time the last week or so to think, much less write about it, as a client has been running me around the state a bit (San Ramon, Los Angeles, San Diego, Napa, and San Ramon again) taking last-minute photographs for an annual report.
So, here goes… a bit rambly…
Zach and I left East Lansing late on my mom’s 83rd birthday (17 January 2010) with about half of what I owned in a rental van — not the kind that you move in, the kind that you travel in. The drive was pretty uneventful, despite that the plains states had been dumped on with snow that winter. The roads, though, were clear, and only a couple of times did we see some light flurries. Until we got to Truckee, California. That evening, a snowstorm blew into the higher elevations of the mountains, where we just happened to be at the, uh… right time, and we were required to stop and buy chains for the tires ($40) and have someone put them on ($30). I think we drove through less than an inch of snow for about five miles before it disappeared. The chains came off. As we pulled in to Sacramento, we decided to grab an hour or so of sleep before heading into the home stretch.
We met Sophie (whom I’d known for five years or more on Flickr and had only met for the first time the previous November in Paris) at the storage place in the Mission District, unloaded all our stuff and made it over to the car rental place on O’Farrell Street to drop off the van we’d pretty much lived in since since the 17th. (We spent one night in a hotel in Rock Springs, Wyoming.) We then proceeded to the hotel on California Street, where Sophie had reserved us all a room.
We were there for only a couple of days when we passed under a For Rent sign dangling from a building on Market Street. We made an appointment the next day to meet with the manager of the building (a failed actor whose biggest claim to fame was an unremarkable bit-part scene with Clint Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz).
It was an… interesting… interview. Bob told us of his acting career, and about his relationship with a much younger woman (Sophie being much younger than I) who was found murdered in Venice, California. He had been the prime suspect, of course. During the interview, Sophie mentioned she had been raised in Hungary, and Bob asked her to sing a song in Hungarian. Despite the weirdness, we signed the lease and paid the deposit and first month’s pro-rated rent. The view had sucked me in.
It rained in torrents for the better part of that week (and month), but it was clear the day we moved into the apartment. We had to make a couple of trips from the storage facility. When we arrived with the first load, there was a young man sleeping on the steps. He wasn’t really much of an impediment to us, although we were slightly concerned about leaving the door open. It was on the second trip from storage that we encountered a different kind of storm. As we pulled up, the building manager, Bob, was chasing the guy from the steps, yelling and cursing at him and threatening him with calling the police. The young man approached us as if looking for an ally and we told him we wanted to stay out of it. He turned and had walked probably twenty feet up the street when the manager decided to lay into him again with more yelling and more swearing. I had just gotten inside the door with a handful when all of the sudden, Bob came rushing in the door, quickly closing it behind him. Almost immediately. the window of the door exploded from the impact of the guy’s backpack, safety glass flying everywhere. The piece of Plexiglas at the bottom of the door also got kicked in.
A fine how do you do!
The cops arrived and the young man was hauled off, but I later learned no charges were pressed. The door, however, was replaced… probably a good thousand dollars worth of damage beyond the broken glass.
It’s been a series of ups and downs since. With no job waiting for me upon arrival (other than booking the Great Lakes Folk Festival by telecommute), I had to start from scratch… not an easy thing for a fifty-four year old to do. That meant scouring Craigslist for photo jobs, but finding few. Fortunately, the Census Bureau was hiring people to canvas homes for the 2010 census so I applied and was hired. The census has several phases, and I was lucky to have been kept on for about six months.
All the while, I applied for any kind of job I thought I could handle (photo-related or not), with no luck, and eventually began doing odd jobs (pick-ups/deliveries, assembling IKEA furniture, driving a couple around Napa Valley vineyards) and a photo job or two via a start-up called Zaarly. Zaarly posted an ad on Craigslist looking for photographers to take portraits and lifestyle photos of various self-employed people for storefronts on the Zaarly site. On the strength of a series of portraits I did in 1995 or so, I was hired as a freelancer. I think I photographed twenty or so people in the Bay Area. (I was also photographed by someone for my storefront.) I got a few jobs via Zaarly, but not many, and since my storefront wasn’t providing Zaarly much revenue, it was shut down with nary a warning.
At some point, I received a call from another start-up called Thumbtack, asking if I wanted to create a profile on its website, which was designed to connect people with professionals for all sorts of tasks. Figuring that it couldn’t hurt, I uploaded a bunch of photos to my profile and waited for the onslaught of work. Thumbtack did little more than post my profile to Craigslist for six months or so (which I heard got it banned from Craigslist), but it eventually evolved into an effective conduit for getting work and, possibly more importantly, reviews from clients.
It didn’t hurt, too, that a friend of mine* I had known for quite a while via Flickr sent me a message on Facebook one Saturday morning to say that she was in town for her brother’s 70th birthday party, and to ask if I were available to photograph the party that night. Her brother being actor (and Ken Burns narrator) Peter Coyote. I responded that indeed I was available, and a few minutes after that, Peter called to ask the same question and to hire me.
Before arriving at the party at Bimbo’s 365, I hadn’t given it a second’s thought about who might be in attendance, but when I walked through the door, there stood Robin Williams, with a couple of women chatting him up. I spent the night doing what I would do for any other client, taking photos of the attendees (actress Alfre Woodard, poet Michael McClure, and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich amongst them), the band, the cake cutting, a few speeches.
Robin Williams did a five-minute routine and what was kind of weird was I don’t recall having seen him all night after seeing him in the foyer. Towards the end of the evening, however, I almost literally bumped into him and, seeing Peter getting some cake ahead of us, I asked him if he’d mind having his photo taken with Peter. That photo has been a mainstay on my website ever since, and no doubt helped to kick start my lagging photo business.
Peter was also kind enough to write a testimonial for my Thumbtack profile, which I copied to my website.
Thumbtack in turn, brought me several regular clients, and helped me gain traction in a competitive line of work in a very competitive market. While I’m still barely getting by, I have had the opportunity to photograph some famous people, as well as many very cool and interesting people.
I came here knowing a handful of people through Flickr and expecting to further develop my relationships with them. With maybe one exception, that hasn’t really come to pass. That’s one aspect of my move that I wish were different. That things haven’t worked out with Sophie is also disappointing, to say the least, but… I have one of the coolest cats ever to keep me company.
It would be difficult to put into a blog post all that has happened in the ten years since I moved here. I will say, though, that I love this city, with all its faults (tectonic and otherwise) and shortcomings and too-high rent and too-expensive prettymucheverything. I love being a relatively short train ride away from the ocean. I love being able to walk to the Bay and taking a ferry to Sausalito if I feel like it. I love seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. It never gets old. In the spring, when Marin Headlands are still green from the winter’s rain, the morning light on the bridge’s International Orange is one of the most beautiful things ever. There is a beauteous view of one kind or another around almost every corner I turn. While walking up the hills gets a little more difficult each year, I still yearn to do it. There are so many cool things to do here and so many cool people who make those things happen.
Years ago, I often said that I’d never want to live any where that didn’t have four seasons, or in a place that could fall down any minute now. My first visit here in July of 2006 changed all that.
Today, in honour of the anniversary, I took a long walk. I made my way to the hotel on California Street where I first stayed, and wended my way back home, passing by and photographing many places that have been seared into my memory these last ten years, as well as a few that have sprung up.
Upon returning home, I was greeted by a most amazing sky at sunset.
*My friend Liz West, who went by the name Muffet on Flickr (also what her brother Peter called her), died almost three years ago from cancer. She was one of my earliest Flickr contacts, and one of my biggest supporters there. I met her for the first time at Peter’s party in October of 2011, and we got to spend a little more time together when I brought the photos on DVDs to Peter’s home in Marin a couple of days later. I feel as though I owe as much to her for whatever success I’ve had as a photographer in San Francisco as anyone or anything else.
I owe everything else to Sophie.
