In August 1977 I moved to San Francisco to attend San Francisco Art Institute, with the ambition of getting an MFA degree in photography. This plan went sideways quickly. Art school was not the experience I had expected and though it took me decades to admit it– I wasn’t very teachable in the classroom and fared much better in the wild, to which I would return after only a year. But, during that year of art school a very promising thing happened for me. I decided for the first time in my nascent career to attempt a color project. I chose to photograph in the Outer Sunset, a working class neighborhood west of Twin Peaks in immediate proximity to the cold, foggy Ocean Beach. I chose it because it was artistically neglected as a subject, had lots of color, and a fringe character–a languid, tranquil ambience out at the edge of town. I started the project in the fall of 77 and continued working on it through the Spring of 78. Not only was it my first color project, it was my first long form photo essay. I submitted the project in my final application to graduate school at SFAI and was not admitted. Had I gotten in, I likely wouldn’t have attended. By this point I was in my mid-20s and felt that if I was ever going to have a career in photography it was time to make that happen– in the wild of the real world. I moved on from this project and from art school. Sometimes you have to be patient. Almost a half century after these photographs were made, they were published as a cover feature in Pamplemousse Magazine–a gratifying final outcome for this project.
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