SF 2
Wednesday, June 8th
I spent most of the morning after waking up in my hotel room figuring out over Facebook what everyone else was doing. The Aida’s Hotel Breakfast consists mainly of a big box of donuts from the place across the street, but it’s hard to argue against a big box of donuts from just about anywhere. Fortunately my old-fashioned room has a nice view of the rooftops next door, though the sunrise was hidden by cloud cover. In typical San Francisco fashion, though, the sun had come out by the time I made it out onto Market Street to navigate the crazy homeless people on my way to meet Joe Aguirre down by the cable cars. As I waited, I took photos of a guy hanging colored lanterns in the trees to the monotone tunes of a man playing harmonica.
After Joe arrived, we walked over to a burger joint near the overpass and met Jared Iorio, whom I’ve known online for years but had never met in person. It turns out that this would be kind of a theme with this trip, as it was in London and Paris. Jared had dragged one of his friends and co-workers on a long drive out from LA, and we talked over lunch while workmen jumped up and down from a truck parked outside.
We met up with Jack Simon to go to the Pier 24 show, which had a few interesting pieces. Jared and I gossiped about the Hardcore Street Photography group that he is also an administer of (though he rarely visits these days), and other things.
The Rayko Center, where our BME show was opening, is an old warehouse and apparently a well-known venue in SF. Our show was bigger in scale than I’d imagined, the images almost too numerous. People started trickling in through the afternoon as jet lag began to fog my brain. I nearly fell asleep on the sofa, not exactly the thing you want to see upon entering any venue, but was rescued by a large cup of Pepsi.
All kinds of people showed up, including some I knew, like Richard Bram, and some I hadn’t met before, such as Stephen McLaren. We talked and looked and milled and mingled until late in the evening; it was a great time, and great seeing old friends like Don and Jack, both of whom were accompanied by their wives.
It was after 10 p.m. When we left the Rayko and walked over to a bustling bar. The group got strung out between the traffic lights, but I could tell they were ahead by all the distant flashes from their cameras as photographers dueled with each other. At the bar I ordered a Cuban sandwich that I knew would be good because the menu demanded no changes to the recipe, and I was right. Then it was back to the Aida, only to find that the wifi had gone out. The staff claimed it wasn’t their fault, but a hotel without wifi these days is like a hotel without running water.
