Tag Archives: #San Francisco

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View from a San Francisco Cable Car

Among the hundreds of 120 black & white negatives I exposed during my autumn 2003 visit to San Francisco was this view from a cable car.

San Francisco’s cable cars are world renowned, yet today’s modest network of cable-hauled streetcars represent just a small fraction of a once extensive network. In the 1950s and again in the 1980s, San Francisco came alarmingly close to abandoning the last vestiges of the network. Today, it is treasured and among the most popular rail-based attractions in the Bay Area.

I exposed this view using the field-finder on my Rolleiflex Model T; this pop-up viewer is simply a little metal square that allows the photographer to approximate the field of view.

Honestly, I’m a little disappointed in the imprecise placement of the leading cable car in the window.

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Square Format on the Embarcedero-click on the post to see the whole photo!

On my Autumn 2003 visit to California, I spent many days traveling on and documenting the San Francisco Municipal Railway.

Of special interest was the ever-popular F-Line that runs between Castro Street and Fisherman’s Wharf using a collection of historic streetcars, many of which are owned and maintained by the Market Street Railway.

On a pleasant October afternoon, I made a series of black & white photos of an F-Line PCC taking the dogleg from Market Street to the Embarcedero.

Soft Mediterranean sun made for perfect conditions for Kodak Tri-X, which I exposed using a 1950s-vintage Rolleiflex Model T. A roll of 120-size Tri-X would allow for just 12 square frames, so I’d compose each image carefully.

The Rollei’s square format enables distinctive images. While some photographers might shoot square and crop rectangular, I prefer to work with the square frame to make the most of the shape and present the images full-frame (without cropping).

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Bredas on the Streets of San Francisco

More Fujichrome retrospective views of Breda-built streetcars in San Francisco.

San Francisco has been a colorful venue for photographing transit vehicles.

Looking back, I still think of these fading antiques as ‘the new cars’. Yet, what was once new is now historic!

Among the commonality of these images was my use of long telephoto lens; some Nikon, others Canon.

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Bye Bye Bredas

After a 30 year run, San Francisco Muni’s Breda-built light rail vehicles are nearing the end of the line.

My first encounter with one of these cars was in summer 1995, when I saw a brand new car being transported on a westward Southern Pacific freight near Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

In the mid-2000s, I became familiar with the Bredas during visits to San Francisco. While I’d been partial to the Boeing-Vertol cars, and I generally preferred the classic PCCs, I traveled upon and made hundreds of photos of Muni’s Bredas over the years.

It’s been quite some time since I last visited San Francisco, and with only days or hours left of their expected service it is improbable that I’ll ever see the Breda cars again in their home environment.

Maybe I’ll shave with one in a few months time.

In May 2008, a San Francisco Muni Breda LRV works a T-line service on 3rd street. Exposed on Fujichrome with a Canon EOS-3.

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J-Church

On a bright morning in June 2008, I made this view of a San Francisco MUNI Breda lightrail car working the J-Church route in-bound on its namesake street.

At the time, I was researching my book Railroads of California for Voyageur Press.

In recent days, I’ve been going through dozens of rolls of Fujichrome slides that I’d exposed during my Spring 2008 visit to California to organize and catalog them. This includes a variety of photo of San Francisco MUNI, including the light rail and cable cars.

Fujichrome slide exposed using a Canon EOS-3 with 24mm Canon lens.

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PCC-San Francisco

Today’s post was a random draw. I reached into my ‘scan selection’ and pulled out this slide.

Exposed in San Francisco on September 6, 2009, this is a morning view of the front of a PCC streetcar assigned to the Muni F-Line.

I made this using one of my EOS-3 cameras loaded with Fujichrome.

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Fog, Glint and a Detoured Boeing

Sometimes a photo captures a moment in time.

This image does it for me.

In August 1991, I lived on Haight Street in San Francisco. For a few days that month, the SF Muni was performing work on the Muni Metro subway beneath Market Street between Castro and Church Streets. As a result, cars that would normally use the subway were detoured via 17th and Church Streets and rejoined the subway at Duboce.

I made this view one evening as Pacific fog climbed the hills to the west. Evening sun, tinted by the fog, glinted off a detouring Boeing-Vertol LRV as it navigated the trackage on 17th Street. In the distance, another set of Boeing cars can be seen entering the subway from rarely used portals at Castro and Market.

I exposed this Kodachrome 25 slide using my Nikon F3T and f1.8 105mm  Nikkor lens. It is one of hundreds of photographs I made of the San Francisco Muni in the 1990s.

Sometimes I dream of the fog coming over the hills, changing the quality of light as it envelopes the city.

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Cal Train at King.

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In October 2003, I made this view of Cal-Train F40PH 914 leading train 74 at 7th and King Street in San Francisco.

You can easily tell this is train 74, because Cal Train put numerical train ID’s on the locomotives displayed near the cab windows. It was among the peculiarities of this intensely operated former Southern Pacific suburban operation.

This image nicely illustrates the difference between a train number which delineates a service and a locomotive number that identifies a piece of equipment. Just in case you were confused.

Exposed on Fujichrome film with a Nikon N90S.

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Blur Beneath the Bay Bridge

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On September 16, 2009, I exposed this Fujifchrome slide using a Canon EOS-3 mounted on a tripod. I used a long shutter speed for motion blur.

A San Francisco Muni Breda Light rail car was rolling along the Embarcedero beneath the famous San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which once carried tracks as well as the highway.

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Geneva Street Car House—SF MUNI.

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I liked the old Boeing-Vertol LRVs. (Light Rail Vehicles).

The shape of the cars lent well to photography.

The San Francisco cars reminded me a the old orange creamsicle frozen treats.

Back in December 1990, I made this view of a Boeing car leaving the Geneva Street car house for a run on the M-Ocean line. I was working with my old Nikkor f4.0 200mm lens on my F3T loaded with Kodachrome 25.

I made great use of that lens, but sold it in 1996 when I bought my 80-200mm zoom. In retrospect, I made better photos with the fixed 200mm.

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