Category: Street Photography

My friend Doug Kaye and I seem to get to San Francisco’s Chinatown a couple of times each year for one of our street photography adventures. We love the small alleys in Chinatown for their beautiful textures and, during some times of the year, amazing light and shadows. But we also love Stockton Street – the central “market hall” for Chinatown.

Stockton Street always seems to be bustling – with thick crowds of people out shopping the markets that line this busy street. It’s often great fun to watch the crosswalks for interesting people as the cross the street or round the corner right in front of you.

On a recent visit I noticed something quite useful – especially for a guy like me who enjoys sitting down and working a particular scene. On many of the street corners on the east side of Stockton Street there are fire hydrants adjacent to the crosswalks – and they’re just the right height to prop my body on or against as I try to stay out of the way of the busy traffic while attempting to capture the scene.

The image above is one example – Doug is crossing the street (shooting with his new Leica Q) – while I’m holding back and capturing the woman in pink who’s looking at him with just a touch of disdain. I shot this with my Fujifilm X100T – and it’s been tightly cropped to exaggerate the effect here – but you get the idea.

Below is an image of one of these “stools”. I waited a couple of minutes for him to leave – because I wanted it – but he was firmly planted and holding forth on his stool! I thought about giving him my camera and asking him to shoot a few shots! 😉

Next time you’re wandering Stockton Street in Chinatown and need a quick break – look for a stool. Just don’t bother looking on the other side of the street – it’s populated with big hydrants from San Francisco’s high pressure distribution system and they lack a smooth top suitable for sitting on! You can see one of those high pressure hydrants in the background of the image with Doug – it’s got the blue top.