Stockton Street
Focal Length: 18mm | Aperture: f5.6 | Exposure: 1/125 | ISO: 100 | Post: CS1
When venturing to Chinatown in San Francisco, you are most often lead to Grant Street, where numerous shops and storefronts sling a wide array of all things China. Smells of Chinese cuisine drift towards the nostrils, camera batteries are sold, that beautiful Chinese calligraphy labels all of the shops and restaurants. Golden dragons, colorful lanterns, and vibrantly intricate garments are all there. Grant Street is the Chinatown for white people or tourists. The real Chinatown runs one block up the hill and parallel to Grant and that is Stockton Street. Here is where the SF residents of Chinese descent shop and eat and swap wares. It’s less glamorous and more genuine, it’s stinky and sticky and incredibly dirty, I love it.
Vice Peddler
Focal Length: 28mm | Aperture: f4 | Exposure: 1/30 | ISO: 400 | Post: CS1
Lottery, smokes and booze, all that separates you is a counter and the man who trades money for vice. This was my corner “stop ‘n rob” when I lived in the NOPA section of Western Addition in San Francisco, I was in here daily, in fact, if you look closely on the counter there, you’ll see my PBR tallboy and a Sparx (not the baby bottle) to start off my evening of debauchery.
Sporti’s Burlington
Camera: Ilford Sporti | Film: Ilford HP5 120 | ISO: 400 | Post: CS4
I bought my second Ilford Sporti a few months ago off eBay from a chap in Britain. They seem to be quite rare in the states as my first Sporti was also from the UK. It’s a great little medium format (120) point and shoot camera built in [West] Germany during the 1960’s. It’s about as basic as you can get: two shutter speeds, focus from 5′ to infinity all encased almost entirely in metal so it’s pretty rugged for such a “cheap” camera. I love it’s retro looks and heft in addition to it’s medium format protocol.
There’s no metering whatsoever, nor is there through-the-lens (TTL) focusing, so there’s quite a bit of guess work involved which quite honestly, is half the fun for me. I shot a few test rolls in Burlington, and I was able to get them developed a few days ago. (Transferred from musingsviabones.com)
