“The best way to socialize is to look into the other person’s eyes.”
I woke up at 6am on Sunday. I could stay in bed lingering under the warmth of the covers, and reading a bit more. Instead, I got up quickly, washed, dressed up, grabbed both of my cameras, and went out into the dark street. One of my New Year’s resolution is to walk every day. I have three routes: down the hill to West Portal, around our hilly neighborhood, or a walk/hike up to Mount Davidson. From our house, it is about a half an hour brisk walk to reach the highest natural point in San Francisco, with an elevation of 928 feet. It is topped by a huge Cross, which is part of the rich San Francisco history.
I often go up there to greet the sunset, or just to take photos of the expansive view of the city. But sometimes instead of the view, Mount Davidson greets visitors with the heaviest fog, which can be a great opportunity to take spectacular images.
When I reached the foot of the hill, I was surprised to meet another photographer. And then I heard voices coming from the top. A few moments later, out of the fog, emerged a group of young men and one woman, most of whom were carrying photo cameras. While I watched and listened to them greet each other, I was even more surprised that many were from out of town. To get here at 7am on this foggy morning was a really special effort. I found out that more than 20 men and a few women were drawn here by Instagram. The idea was to get together to photograph, or to create a video with the maximum duration of 15 seconds. Instagrams can be shared on a variety of social networking platforms.
But what I noticed was that though all of them had photo cameras, including some old ones with film, they were not taking photographs; instead they were socializing and talking to one another. In my observation, I considered that those young people probably spend most of their working hours alone, in front of computers. For them any form of gathering outside their familiar environment is to actually meet, talk, and socialize. The camera is just a reason for belonging to a certain group. Of course my theory may be wrong. My daughter once suggested for me to share my images on Instagram, but I did not know how. One woman in the group explained how I can do it and promised to let me know about the next gathering. Though, I was the “wisest” dude among them. (To find out the difference between an old dude and a wise one read my story.), I felt good and while they were talking, I was photographing.
P.S.
As I’ve previously written, while photography means drawing with light, fog blocks a lot of light. I like to create images where fog is a contributor to the special images. There was an interesting story in the S.F. Chronicle, about how a photo-bomb on Instagram made international news.
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