Sometimes you just have to run ….

I was traipsing around the most glorious city on the left coast yesterday enjoying weather designed by Hollywood and I got to thinking. (Pardon the awful English, I’ve been watching too many Clint Eastwood movies recently). Some days it’s perfectly clear you simply cannot take a good street photograph. Yes, you still have to go out, serve your time, bang away, fail miserably, knowing it’s the penance required for days like yesterday. I have lots of days of penance. So the city owed me one. And boy, did it ever deliver.

Don’t ask me how days like this happen. All I know is that when they do you grab the opportunity with both hands, ask no questions and push the button. You cannot predict it, you cannot analyze it and it’s beyond human comprehension. It’s just how it is.

So here, without further ado, are some of yesterday’s snaps with a few words thrown in about how it all happened.

Head man.

Piece of cake this one. I saw the guy at 100 yards and just waited. I had my patented Invisibility Cloak on so he could not see me. Impossible to miss something like this and what was he going to do? Drop his load?

Silent critic.

The only thing to do here was not to laugh. I tried half a dozen variants as the cell phone guy paced this way and that, oblivious to the world. All it took was for his critic to be placed just so. Funny thing about people on their cell phones. They become blind.

Big one.

I spotted this across Mission Street. As I crossed, trying not to be taken out by crazy cyclists convinced of their primacy on the road, I squeezed off a couple from a distance just in case. As I got closer and closer the subject remained stationary – maybe nor surprisingly – until I got the framing just so for the last in the series, the brick wall providing a nice counterbalance to her heft. It’s known as ‘sneaker zoom’. You keep walking until the subject fills the view. And where exactly do you get Levis in that size?

Pecker.

Pure serendipity, this one. I liked the composition and approached, hoping something might happen. Suddenly the bird landed and the guy on the right dipped his head. Click. No second chance here.

Kick ass.

This was nothing more than a knee jerk (!) reaction. The lady had raised her leg to support her purse, searching for quarters, and the man was trying to figure out the arcana of modern San Francisco parking meters. Just raise the camera and bang. No chance for composition. No time. I lucked out. It was that kind of day.

Hat, gloves and socks.

This very dignified gent was reliving the Old World, enjoying yesterday’s technology, aka a book, and all I tried to do was preserve his dignity and calm in the gorgeous light. Not hard when your subject is engrossed. He’s got that white thing down – hat, gloves, socks.

Superman.

But sometimes, you simply have to run. San Francisco is blessed with several generations of public transit – cable cars, streetcars, trolley buses and the Muni light rail system. I had to dodge the last three as I ran hell for leather across Steuart Street, for I had spotted Superman all of 100 yards away, the lights were changing and he was heading for his car. Narrowly saving the taxpayers of the City by the Bay a multi-million dollar lawsuit as I avoided an oncoming streetcar, I beat the world and Olympic records for the 100 yard dash to get close enough. The Man of Steel gave me one backward glance before getting in the car and that’s all I needed.

Sometimes you just have to run ….

All snaps on the Panasonic G1 with the 14-45mm kit lens set at 18mm and auto-everything at ISO320.