A Walk to Remember

I set out on a photographic journey in the North Beach or "Little Italy" section of San Francisco with nothing in my holster except for a Holga. The Holga camera is a medium-format, plastic camera that was intended to provide an inexpensive mass-market camera for working-class Chinese in order to record family portraits and events in the early '80s. On this expedition I use it as a tool to give up a little control and incorporate some spontaneity that doesn't and can't exist in my studio work. I came across a poem by George Sterling that was rolling through my mind as I traversed the hills of San Francisco. It goes like this:

At the end of our streets is sunrise;
At the end of our streets are spars;
At the end of our streets is sunset;
At the end of our streets the stars.
Ever the winds of morning
Are cool from the flashing sea--
Flowing swift from our ocean,
Till the fog-dunes crumble and flee.
Slender spars in the offing,
Mast and yard in the slips--
How they tell on the azure
Of the sea-contending ships!
Homeward into the sunset
Sill unwearied we go,
Till the northern hills are misty
With the amber of afterglow.
Stars that sink to our ocean,
Winds that visit our strand,
The heavens are your pathway,
Where is a gladder land!
At the end of our streets is sunrise;
At the end of our streets are spars;
At the end of our streets is sunset;
At the end of our streets the stars.