San Francisco Chinatown
A Vintage Series of Photos from the 1970s
In the mid 1970s, I lived for a while in San Francisco, California. I was born in Oakland, but being raised in a military family meant we moved quite often during my elementary and high school years. When I was on my own I visited San Francisco as often as I could since my grandmother on my mother’s side still lived there. I would visit her along with some aunts and uncles and cousins — one, my cousin Pat — owned Dianda’s Italian bakery, famous for their rum cakes, which was started by his father.
When I lived in the city in the mid ‘70s, I lived in an apartment on Haight Street, a block off Market. I worked part time for a newspaper in Mill Valley, and did freelance work for a few magazines and advertising agencies. When I wasn’t involved with those pursuits I spent a lot of time walking the streets taking photographs. One of my favorite places to photograph was Chinatown, but not the Chinatown tourists frequented.
Chinatown was about a 30-minute walk from my apartment. I’d go there often to photograph and buy fresh vegetables at one of the ubiquitous Chinese delis or fruit and vegetable stands that the locals frequented. Since most of these establishments weren’t appealing to tourists, it was very much like wandering a foreign town, and I often was the only non-Chinese person I would encounter during these walks.
This was in the pre-digital camera days, so a technical note here:
All the images shown here are scanned from 35mm black and white film negatives. The scanner I own and use isn’t ideally suited for slides or negatives. It does a better job with things like photo prints. The scans aren’t as sharp as the originals and if one tries to sharpen the images up (because they loose some sharpness and quality of the tonal range in the scanning process) it adds an undesirable amount of grain (or “noise” to those familiar with digital terminology). Consequently I find myself apologizing for the scans because they don’t match the sharpness and image quality of the original prints.
OK, enough of the technical stuff, on to the photographs.
People fascinate me. I photograph people at work, at play and in family situations, to name a few. In my Chinatown photos I tried to show the hustle and bustle of ordinary life in this section of San Francisco. People working, greeting each other, shopping for vegetables like I was, reading the Chinese Times… they were all subjects I was interested in. For the most part I felt, after spending days on end on the streets, that I was accepted and fit in, as much as a non-Asian guy carrying a camera around could fit in. I wanted to show un-posed, natural looking images, and for the most part I feel like I succeeded.
A number of the images were used at that time in the San Francisco Examiner’s Sunday magazine, California Living. Many others, over the years, were used in numerous newspapers, magazines and textbooks.
When I lived in the city in the mid ‘70s, I lived in an apartment on Haight Street, a block off Market. I worked part time for a newspaper in Mill Valley, and did freelance work for a few magazines and advertising agencies. When I wasn’t involved with those pursuits I spent a lot of time walking the streets taking photographs. One of my favorite places to photograph was Chinatown, but not the Chinatown tourists frequented.
Chinatown was about a 30-minute walk from my apartment. I’d go there often to photograph and buy fresh vegetables at one of the ubiquitous Chinese delis or fruit and vegetable stands that the locals frequented. Since most of these establishments weren’t appealing to tourists, it was very much like wandering a foreign town, and I often was the only non-Chinese person I would encounter during these walks.
This was in the pre-digital camera days, so a technical note here:
All the images shown here are scanned from 35mm black and white film negatives. The scanner I own and use isn’t ideally suited for slides or negatives. It does a better job with things like photo prints. The scans aren’t as sharp as the originals and if one tries to sharpen the images up (because they loose some sharpness and quality of the tonal range in the scanning process) it adds an undesirable amount of grain (or “noise” to those familiar with digital terminology). Consequently I find myself apologizing for the scans because they don’t match the sharpness and image quality of the original prints.
OK, enough of the technical stuff, on to the photographs.
People fascinate me. I photograph people at work, at play and in family situations, to name a few. In my Chinatown photos I tried to show the hustle and bustle of ordinary life in this section of San Francisco. People working, greeting each other, shopping for vegetables like I was, reading the Chinese Times… they were all subjects I was interested in. For the most part I felt, after spending days on end on the streets, that I was accepted and fit in, as much as a non-Asian guy carrying a camera around could fit in. I wanted to show un-posed, natural looking images, and for the most part I feel like I succeeded.
A number of the images were used at that time in the San Francisco Examiner’s Sunday magazine, California Living. Many others, over the years, were used in numerous newspapers, magazines and textbooks.
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To contact Bob Eckert for assignments, consultations or workshops, please email [email protected]
or use the contact form on the About page
or use the contact form on the About page