City Of Lights

Photo Location: San Francisco, CA

California Street runs straight downhill from Nob Hill toward the Financial District and the Bay, and if you stand at the top of it on a clear day and look toward the water, the Bay Bridge hangs at the end of the street like it was placed there specifically for this composition. The buildings line up on both sides, the cable car tracks disappear into the perspective, the city grid drops away below you, and at the very end of it all — framed by rooflines and wires and the entire visual energy of one of San Francisco’s most alive streets — the bridge appears in the distance across the water.

I made this image on a bright midday when the light was hitting the facades hard from above and the colors of the buildings were doing what San Francisco colors do in full sun: they stopped being architectural and started being something closer to chromatic. The reds and creams and greens of the storefronts, the deep blue of the sky, the warm tan of the pavement running down the hill, the silver of the bridge at the end of it — all of it saturated by the specific quality of Bay Area light that is unlike anything on the California coast north or south of the city.

I have had more people look at this image and ask if it was a painting than any other photograph I have made. It is not a painting. The TruLife acrylic surface deepens the colors further than any canvas or paper medium can, which may explain part of the confusion — but the saturation and the graphic clarity were in the original capture. The city looked like this. That’s what made me stop.

TruLife acrylic-mounted limited edition of 100, signed by me with Certificate of Authenticity. Free US shipping.  Image copyright © Jongas Fine Art Photography.