Lately I’ve been shooting a lot of impromptu street portraits. Pretty much anybody on the street (with just a couple of exceptions) interests me. I think what I like most about it is the challenge of convincing a total stranger they’d make a great subject. Sometimes you go back and forth for fifteen seconds making the pitch, but it’s rare for someone to refuse. It also provides a great opportunity to learn something about their life, an interesting job, or something about the City in general that I didn’t know before.

The above photograph is of Officers Dennis Toomer and Kathy Wong. Both are from Southern Station and they have 15 years and 3 years on the force, respectively.

I started doing street portraits of SFPD cops shortly after having having a run in with them more than a year ago when my friend and fellow street-shooter Ray Angelo snapped a woman while we were out shooting in the downtown. She subsequently gave us a huge amount of grief and got the police involved. But in the end it all worked out (story here) – two of the police that stopped us are photographers!  SFPD cops are always friendly and great to photograph; and many times have interesting stories. I probably have two or three dozen photos of them, and try and keep some prints in my bag to hand out when I run into them again. Today I don’t do as many police portraits, preferring ordinary people now, but do have a couple SFPD project ideas kicking around.

Lately I’ve been shooting a lot of impromptu street portraits. Pretty much anybody on the street (with just a couple of exceptions) interests me. I think what I like most about it is the challenge of convincing a total stranger they’d make a great subject. Sometimes you go back and forth for fifteen seconds making the pitch, but it’s rare for someone to refuse. It also provides a great opportunity to learn something about their life, an interesting job, or something about the City in general that I didn’t know before.

The above photograph is of Officers Dennis Toomer and Kathy Wong. Both are from Southern Station and they have 15 years and 3 years on the force, respectively.

I started doing street portraits with SFPD cops shortly after having having a run in with them more than a year ago when my friend and fellow street-shooter Ray Angelo snapped a woman while we were out shooting in the downtown. She subsequently gave us a huge amount of grief and got the police involved. But in the end it all worked out (story here) – two of the police that stopped us are photographers!  SFPD cops are always friendly and great to photograph; and many times have interesting stories. I probably have two or three dozen photos of them, and try and keep some prints in my bag to hand out when I run into them again.

Today I don’t do as many police portraits, preferring ordinary people now, but do have a couple SFPD project ideas kicking around.

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