Notes From the West Coast | San Francisco, CA

In the glow of a West Coast Winter.

I’m telling you, the Back seat passenger is where it’s at!

I’ve grown fond of riding along as the back seat passenger, knowing that the point of view is always changing there. A lot of the time, the photos are blurry, someone’s hand gets in the way, the glare from the sun on the window is much too much. Almost all of the time, these are the shots I live for. The honest candids, the overexposed and the grainy, the multi-dimensional freeze frame of everything in motion.

When I finally sort through my SD card and arrive at these, I tend to stare at my screen a little longer than I probably should. Because what else would you do with photos that share the gold of a moment with you? The photos you know can never be replicated?

This trip was the first time I ever really photographed people, mostly because it always felt too noticeable, too intimidating, too honest.

But, I had seen thousands of images taken by my favorite photographers, and it seemed that what always stuck with me were the ones that painted striking time capsules of people. They were faces mosaicked onto landscapes—people living their own day to day.

“The honest candids, the overexposed and the grainy, the multi-dimensional freeze frame of everything in motion. ”

Admiring streets that look like rivers from twin peaks.

All this inspiration finally added up, and when I touched down in San Francisco, I told myself to look closely and just take the photos. Of course, this will always come with a balance—recognizing when to click a memory into infinity and when to just soak up the credits and let them roll along as they should.

Thankfully, these two (and a long list of others who have done the same since) trusted me to find that balance and then go ahead and capture it all. Somehow, they even managed to sneak a few shots of me into the album…

I love looking back at this trip in digital—retracing over the carefully carved streets of San Francisco; imagining the Farmer’s Market speaking in cups of coffee; searching for the one in 100 snap-click-capture of a russet Golden Gate framed by side profiles and a rearview mirror with wires climbing up into endless blue.

These, and a handful of others, are my own little pieces of the here and now. They are a blend of simplicity and complexity everywhere, marked by best friends who create the moments when life is so brightly lit up. And for all of that, I can only feel grateful just to have witnessed our West Coast Winter through my own lens.

“But, I had seen thousands of images taken by some of my favorite photographers, and it seemed that what really stuck with me were the ones that painted striking time capsules of people. They were faces mosaicked onto landscapes—people living their own day to day. ”

Watching the warmth spill THROUGH the Car window.

that one time I opted for the true passenger seat just to turn back around and see the sunset cascade across the car.