Friday, June 11, 2010

Slanted Light



This was the brightest sunrise of any day since I switched last week and started waiting for MUNI on 16th Street near Guerrero.



The transfer stop at Fillmore and McAllister was still dim and dark thanks to the abundance of big ficus trees growing along the pavements and to the monolithic public housing blocks and to a natural declivity in the terrain.




So on the walk up the hill before emerging into the sun again I was noticing the oddball details, as is my natural tendency, instead of the landscape.


But then when I did look up, the slanted light was transforming even downright ugly monsters like the one below (all detailing stripped off and asbestos shingles slapped on) into meritorious monuments.


Below is what the gray-shingled monster must have looked like originally. The two buildings are only a block apart and must have been put up by the same builder at around the same time.








All the houses, fancy and plain, looked at this hour like containers for lives that could never be other than happy. Cameras are handy for capturing brief illusions like that.



In this last long view facing back down the hill toward the east, the dome of City Hall (at lower left) was certainly not intended to be part of the picture. It looks here as if it must be fairly near, but in reality is more than a mile away. Only when I uploaded the images did I discover that the remote dome was even in the frame.