CALIBER

“I look at my photographs as portraits of our ancestors. As such they serve as reminders that we have all walked in someone else’s footsteps; that it is impossible to cut oneself off from the past.” ~ David Plowden

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In March of this year, I started a project called i live here:SF. I wanted to learn more about portraiture, and how to take pictures of people because up until recently, I really hadn’t been taking pictures of people at all, except for the random, sometimes furtive, street photo. The project has taken off in ways I couldn’t even have imagined at the time of its inception and has become a very dear and special part of my life because of the people I meet and the experiences I have with them.

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And now there is another added dimension to my newly found love of portraiture. Last week, I finally met my late grandmother’s cousin, Marty. He’s 86 years old and lives in Marin. He came down to meet me for lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the outer Sunset. Marty reminded me of Ansel Adams, dressed comfortably in jeans, a plaid shirt, sporting a greying beard and a wide brimmed canvas hat. As we shared our clay pot lunches, he told me about his life as an inventor and a professor of optics. Of his patents and his days working on such varied projects as automatic record changers and solar radiation simulators that helped the development of the Apollo missions. He brought me a photo of himself as a young man, as a photographer. As I was hanging on every word, enjoying our conversation immensely while at the same time saddened and wondering why so many years had gone by that I had never met him.

And then he got to the most amazing (for me) part of the conversation. His uncles, Robert and John Lewis, of Birmingham and Manchester, England, were portrait photographers. They came to America in the late 1800s on the winnings of a small lottery, following the dream of so many others to a better life here in the United States. They used that lottery money well. Buying a horse and wagon, that wagon became their darkroom. They travelled up and down the East Coast, known as “The Itinerant Photographers,” before the turn of the century, taking portraits of people for their livelihood.

Now, I don’t ascribe any cosmic significance to these sorts of things, but I do revel in wonderful coincidences. I don’t think that a love of photography can be inherited, by my god, what I wouldn’t give for just an hour to spend with Rob and John Lewis, and their horse and wagon darkroom.

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ps. The portrait above is of Megahn, who is the newest subject on i live here:SF. There are a few interesting facts about this photo. One, that it was taken in a building that is purported to be the actual geographic center of San Francisco, on Baker Street, and Two, that in several of these photos (you can see the rest by following this link), Megahn is wearing some vintage hats that I own… made by my cousin Marty’s mother, Minnie, who was a milliner in New York. I didn’t realize that at the time the photographs were taken.

pss. i live here:SF is an open invitation to residents of San Francisco. If you would like to participate in my project (or might know of someone else who does), please contact me at ilivehereSF at gmail dot com and I can give you the details.