A few weeks ago, Marina, Nyusha, and I have spent a day in Montreal. Here’s a shot I grabbed as we were walking around with no particular goal in mind. I used to spend quite a bit of time in Montreal back in the day. This trip brought back memories.

Taken in the lobby of the De Young museum in the Golden Gate park, not far from my house. There was something very touching (to me) about this scene that I can’t quite put a finger on.

I haven’t really been able to shoot much at all over the past few weeks. Life has been hectic lately. In any case, here’s a new old picture. I took it about five years ago, on one of my first visits to San Francisco.

Now, I’ve always said that if there ever was a personal Hell for me, Christian-style, it would pretty much have to be set in a never-ending shopping mall. There’s very few things in this world that unnerve me quite as much as malls, mall culture, and everything associated with them. I do a pretty good job avoiding them in my day-to-day life and when I absolutely must go to one of them, I pretty much treat it as a ninja mission. Go on, chop some heads off, and get out as quickly as possible.

Now I don’t remember the precise reason that led me to that mall 5 years ago. It’s been too long. I do remember taking this picture though, leaning my trusty old (3 1/2-megapixel) Olympus E-10 on the railing and hoping for the best. I had just met Marina and we were spending one of our first weekends together, wandering around the city lost in a never-ending conversation about anything and everything.

A street-protestor in Berkeley, Ca. A common sight. Incidentally, this is also the first picture I ever took with a medium format camera. This was before I learned how to develop my film – I handed this one in to Adolph Gasser in downtown San Francisco. Brings back memories.