San Francisco Photography is the work of Brad Dow, with a lot of help from his art director, assistant, editor, morale officer, and wife, Catherine Brosnan, who is herself a talented photographer. I find it hard to imagine this work—or my life, for that matter—without her support and influence.

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The work you see here began around 2009, first in film, and later, beginning around 2012, in digital. I had been pursuing a variety of projects (stone walls of Ireland, rock formations of coastal California, etc), but due to the demands of my work as a technical writer and programmer, I found it difficult to get to my subjects on a regular basis. So I decided to shift my attention to the world around me, places I found myself on a regular basis. Whenever I went to the City (San Francisco), for any reason, I would carry a Leica and a couple of lenses, and walk the streets surrounding my destination. What began as an accommodation to my schedule became something more, as I began to discover the visual richness of this iconic city. The work that came out of these strolls proved far more interesting than any previous project, and the work became a fifteen-year obsession that continues to this day. As of I write these words in 2024, I’m up to about 33 thousand images. This website represents the distillation of those images.

So, I continue to wander around the districts of San Francisco making compositions in form, shape, line, texture, and tone. The images may appear to be documentary in nature. There is a bit of that, although I'm more interested in the mood and feeling than visual accuracy. But my way of working is more formal than narrative. I don’t try to tell a story, although you might say there is a story here, lurking in the background as a kind of hinted-at context, the story of this insane, rich, and fascinating city.

I’ve tried many times to do similar work in other cities within relatively convenient reach: Paso Robles, Monterey, Carmel, not to mention my hometown, South San Francisco just ten miles south of the City.  But for reasons hard to put into words, that these images are tied to The City makes all the difference. Often, as I photograph, I’ll hear in my mind’s ear a caption that bears the date, place, and theme: “San Francisco 2022, Noe Valley District, Stairs and Bannisters,” and that seems to change them for me. I often wonder how the images—if they survive—might appear in 25 or 50 years, and whether they will convey the same poignancy as historical photographs of San Francisco. I hope so. 

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I invite you to notice that the images are best viewed in sequence. To fully understand any given image, it has to be placed in a context of other images, especially those with similar themes. As I make them, I'm constantly aware of related images, and I'm always trying to stretch and build on the collection as a whole, to make each image a variation or comment on its cousins, extending some underlying continuity, yet at the same time exploring another variation. 

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You might ask, why are so many images tilted from horizontal? As I compose images I search for the field of view and angle that gives me the most visual excitement and satisfaction. As I move forward or backward, seeking to included that bit or exclude the other, or place various bits in some harmonious relationship to each other, I search for the peak of visual satisfaction, where everything seems to balance just right in the frame, I often rotate the camera away from level, and find that doing so is like turning the dial of an internal potentiometer connected to some part of my mind. I can feel the strength of the signal rising and falling as I turn the dial. Like dialing in a radio station with an old-fashioned radio, I stop when the signal is strongest. Often that’s not when the real or implied horizon is level.

But you may notice that there’s usually some element in the composition that does align with up and down. (The photographer Gary Winogrand’s work often tilted from level, and he was criticized for that. Some suggested the tilts were a haphazard result of working quickly, without using the view finder clamped to the top of his Leica. On the contrary, despite superficial appearances, every single one of his seemingly countless images were carefully and thoughtfully—even if quickly—composed, and there’s always something in every frame that does align level, even if it wasn’t the horizon.) So it is with my images. I invite you not to turn your head to restore apparent level, but to try to see the images as I saw them. You may find them more visually satisfying that way, as I do.

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I enjoy color. Just about everyone does. And San Francisco is a colorful city. So why are these images all black and white? For me at least, color grabs our attention and holds onto it, and color photographs tend to arrive in our consciousness like a punch: suddenly and forcefully. Black and white is quieter. It allows, invites, even urges us to use our imagination and to notice the often subtle visual aspects so often overshadowed by color. Black and white photographs tend to arrive in our consciousness more gradually, sustain our attention longer, express a wider palette of feeling, and knit together into sequences more harmoniously.

Others may feel differently. But that’s how I feel.