Noah

on Haight Street
Sunday morning

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"I'm one of the few people in this city that isn't a transplant. I've spent the majority of my youth here. After turning into an adult I've moved around. Places I've lived include Hawaii, New York and Albuquerque to name a few. No matter where I've lived no place has ever had the same feel as San Francisco. It's one of the most unique places on the planet. And you've just got to love it."

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The rest of Noah's photo shoot is here.

Allan

on a rooftop in SOMA
Friday noon

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in his words:

I've recently started collecting pieces of scrap metal I find in the street. I've always been a collector, but previously my habit had been limited to Legos or CDs or typewriters -- useful things. Now I pick up discarded hunks of rusty metal.

This came about when a couple of weeks ago I'd noticed that while biking I was having to swerve around a lot more scrap metal than usual. I mentioned this to a friend, saying, "If I'd been picking it all up, I'd have a gallery-ready art project on my hands by now." My friend said, "You should do it!" I said, "No, no, then I'd be an insane person."

The compulsive collector in me took over, and now the piles of junk on my coffee table at home and on my desk at work are getting bigger every day. I've gotten some good stuff on Valencia, on Duboce, and on Bryant. But my choicest find to date is the big rusty coil I picked up on Alemany this morning. I don't know anything about art galleries.

I am an insane person.

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Allan's blog is Mission Mission.

The rest of Allan's photoshoot is here.

Soad

in the Mission
Friday afternoon

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I grew up with my Egyptian Muslim father and with my Basque-Italian-American Catholic mother, first in Egypt, and then in California, and since 1997 here in San Francisco. All my life I’ve actively participated in different cultures, customs, and languages. I have learned to navigate the nuances of difference and have found comfort in the fluidity of my mixed identity. While the experiential variety of my life weaves a colorful tapestry, the awareness, knowledge and skills rising from such mingling of ideas and perspectives generates endless explorations for my artwork.

Our interconnections visually, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually are continually fascinating and inspiring to me. But to notice and really see, feel these connections, I have to continually refresh my ability to be present and to live in the moment. Everything in life has the potential for beauty and vitality if we just take the time and attention to be still, to use all of our senses with open minds and open hearts, and to allow ourselves to be moved. Eating well, traveling (even at home), dancing, painting, listening to live music, learning something new everyday and enjoying intimate conversations – this is what invigorates and helps me to see and to feel beauty or connection and then be moved to paint it.

San Francisco is a place I adore, a city where I continually get refreshed, where my desires are fed deliciously, where new ones become, and where daily I am reminded, often with a smile, of the wonderful variety in human expression encouraged to flourish here. Living in San Francisco feels like home more than anywhere I’ve ever lived - I love it!

Soad's website (www.studiosoad.com) is here.

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The rest of Soad's photo shoot is here.

Kathryn

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
Friday afternoon

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They say that when you find “the one”, you just know it. Until it happens to you, this sounds absurd. But then it happens and you enter this entire new world of human experience with this feeling that can not be described in any other way than “you just know”. For those people who haven’t found the geographical equivalent of “the one”, my story may sound silly because I have fallen head over heels in love with San Francisco. I knew it from the very first moment that I felt the chill of fog hit my desert-born skin. I first came here when I was eighteen on a spontaneous trip and there is no other way to describe it than “I just knew” … this was meant to be my home.

The thing about “the one” is that you do have that initial period of infatuation when everything seems magical and you don’t believe that you can ever dislike anything about the one that you love. But that happens with all kinds of lust and passion. With the one, it’s different because eventually, you start to see the negatives in anything that you love. And what’s different with the one is that, despite any negatives that you may find, you still feel head-over-heels passionately in love. The glamour and wonder of that initial infatuation never fade even when reality sets in.

I can see the negatives in San Francisco. I don’t love the weather here. I balk a little at the exorbitant rent that I pay each month to live here. I see the problems with homeless people and crazy people and confused people. I see that small venues aren’t always the best place for events and that we aren’t as diverse as we claim to be here and that our gentrification has positives and negatives. I see that sometimes we are so city-centric that we forget about how things are in the rest of the world. And you know what? I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Because the beautiful sheen of this city has never left my eyes and every time I leave its boundaries my heart leaps out of my chest and stays behind. Because I can walk past a homeless person yelling crazy things at me and immediately see ten thousand beautiful sights that make me fall in love again and again every single day.

I feel my best when I am in San Francisco. They say that creativity and sexuality come from the same place – the urge to create and the passion we feel for the act of creation. And I think that’s true. Because I am always at my most creative when I am in San Francisco and I always feel my sexiest amidst the energy of this city. What you might want to know about me is that I’m a freelance writer and blogger who moved here in 2006. You can learn more about that from my website (www.kathrynvercillo.com) and my blog about the sexy side of the city (http://sanfranciscoissexy.com).

But all that you really need to know about me is that I love every moment that I’ve ever spent with San Francisco. I love the random walks down Macondray Lane and up the staircases to Coit Tower. I love the sudden striking views and the hidden mural-filled alleys. I love the museums and the galleries and the boutique stores. I love the uniquely creative people you meet here in cafes and bookstores and bars, at open mic poetry readings and burlesque shows and tech conferences, online and through others who are here. I love the moments when I look at something and suddenly just feel gripped by the hope that I will have this love forever. I love that almost everyone who I know here feels that same way about San Francisco. And if you don’t feel that way about San Francisco, I really hope that you find “the one” city that is right for you. Trust me, you’ll know it when you do.

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The rest of Kathryn's photo shoot is here.

Julie

Potrero Hill
Friday morning

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Hello. My name is Julie and I live in San Francisco. Like many in this town, I’m a transplant – originally hailing from Ohio. Much to the dismay of my mid-western kin, I’ve officially planted roots here - Potrero Hill to be exact - with my husband and 3-year-old boy. Over the years my lengthy response to their enduring question – “When are you coming home?” – has evolved into one simple word: never. I still don’t think they get it.

Raising a family in San Francisco is a challenge. It’s expensive, the school system sucks and we trip over ourselves in our tiny house. While many friends have fled for the bucolic family life the suburbs provide, we’ve committed to persevere. There’s a life force of energy and creativity in San Francisco that I wouldn’t trade for any amount of money or square footage.

When I’m not being ‘Mom’, I’m running a business and blogging about my obsession – music. I am also in the process of completing studies for another passion of mine - clothing patternmaking and design. Add to my resume, ‘Patternmaker’, and my current string of titles looks something like this – Mom/Entrepreneur/High Tech Marketing Maven/ Blogger/Patternmaker. Or maybe I should just shorten it to: Cliché – typical San Francisco overachiever.

My Music Blog: http://www.theocmd.com

My Business: http://www.theentertainingspace.com/

Coming Soon: http://www.415project.com

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The rest of Julie's photo shoot.

Jacobo

Lexington Street
The Mission

La belle fille

Haight Street

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The rest of la belle fille's photo shoot.

Kenneth

City Lights Books

North Beach

late Friday afternoon

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In his words:

My past is buried in saffron-colored Southeast Asia. When I immigrated to the U.S., I brought with me a few tangible memories (for instance, the tessellated satchel from my school years), but I left the rest behind to stew under the hostile sun, to swim in the monsoon deluge from the Bay of Bengal. My recollections remain hidden in the Buddhist temples and the coconut groves, in the quiet monasteries and the muddy riverbanks. The fishermen with sinewy shoulders, the Buddhist monks with crooked teeth, and the brown-skinned matriarchs haggling over the price of a sack of rice will serve as temporary custodians of my personal history. They know that one day, when the country is free from the clutch of the military regime, I’ll return to reclaim my childhood.

I now live nearly 8,000 miles across the Pacific from my homeland. Here, several time zones removed from my origin, I’ve made a new home for myself among the secondhand bookshops, the Beatnik-haunted cafes, and the fog-choked city streets. But in the rumbles of the cable cars and the shouts at the farmers’ market, I still hear echoes of the temple bells and the open bazaars of the Far East.

Visiting my birthplace nearly 100 years before I was born, Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.” Sometimes, my childhood friends, who’d never ventured beyond their own shores, inquired, “What’s America like?” I’m tempted to reply, “This is San Francisco, and it’s quite unlike any other American city you know about.”

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Kenneth's blog: http://sfsinglelife.blogspot.com/

The rest of Kenneth's photo shoot.