This is a hopelessly belated photo story of the photowalk my friends and I did back in February, focusing on a few landmarks in San Francisco's Hunters Point and Chinatown neighborhoods. My friend did all the driving so the itinerary was at his discretion. First order of business in the morning was this particular set of artful stairs:
Called the Arelious Walker Stairway, it's one of many mosaic-tile step installations scattered throughout San Francisco. This set connects Innes Avenue up to Northridge Road in the Hunters Point neighborhood. My driving friend had already shot the other mosaic stairs and this one completes the set.
After the colorful stairs we thought since we're in the neighborhood already, might as well pop down the street and have a look at the old naval shipyard. In recent years the place surrounding it have massively gentrified, but the old ghosts of ship-working still lie there dormant, awaiting its final fate: dismantlement for new housing.
I had just recently purchased my first set of ND filters, and shooting the shipyard was the maiden attempt at long-exposure during the daytime. Due to being so far away from the water the smoothing effect isn't all that apparent so I'll be on the hunt for many lakes and waterfalls in the future.
After getting enough of the morning Vitamin-D at the shipyard, we motored on towards San Francisco Chinatown. The specific goal was to survey the many walls of mural art painted throughout the district.
We simply had to take a stop at our childhood haunt: Chinese Playground on Sacramento between Grant and Stockton. I have fond memories of playing volleyball with friends here on the weekends.
The Chinese Playground happens to play host to this particular mural:
The mythical Dragon is a major symbol in Chinese culture and no surprise the motif is widely utilized in the Chinatown murals.
SF's Chinatown is full of interconnecting alleyways and side-streets, each with unique character and architectural interest points. Obviously they serve their innate utilitarian purpose quite well as we used them to traverse through the many blocks without needing to contend with motor vehicles.
We arrived at the intersection between Broadway and Stockton, and not being content with the long-exposure shot I did with the ND filters earlier in the day, I figured the busy crosswalk would be excellent to have another go:
At one point we arrived at an elementary school, the playground of which was a film location in the Will Smith movie 'The Pursuit of Happyness". The school's upper basketball court set the scene for the film's emotional climax.
Unfortunate for us it was Saturday and school was out, so we couldn't enter the premises without resorting to trespassing. I had to settle for shooting from outside the fencing:
The day sadly came to an abrupt end when we went to the top of the Stockton tunnel to do some shots and unceremoniously - and much to do with my stupidity - my camera fell out of the tripod and onto concrete six-feet below. Day instantly over. Thankfully the camera body survived the tumble with only cosmetic blemishes. The lens however took the brunt of the impact and broke off its collar ring.
At least I managed to get a few photos in before the incident:
A few weeks and 700 dollars poorer the broken lens was good as new.