"Don't stand...Don't stand so...Don't stand so close to me..."

I have a problem. No, really. Stop laughing. A lot of people think that my drive-by shooting is a dangerous exercise. Driving, holding a camera out the window as I speed through the streets of whatever city or town I may be in. But let me tell you, now that I'm restricted to only shooting at stop lights and stop signs (mostly), drive-by shooting is a much safer proposition than walk-by shooting as evidenced in my little trip yesterday.


I took BART into The City yesterday for a reception. I arrived at Montgomery Station at about 5 p.m. and walked up the stairs to reach street level and that's when it happened. As I was coming up to ground level I looked up. OMG! My camera! My camera! Where is it? I stopped in my tracks and started looking for my camera. That building was amazing! And somewhere in the recesses of my mind I heard some grumbling behind me as people stopped their straight up progress out of BART and moved around me on their not-so straight line journey.

But it didn't stop there. How can you walk in a city and not look up? Not admire the architecture? The lines of the building, the history, the beauty? People are always so hell-bent on getting to their destination that it often goes unnoticed. On the other hand, maybe I notice too much...


I don't walk in a straight line (never have). The streets were crowded, but I was unaware as I looked up and saw a beauty of a building and stopped to shoot. And that's when I would hear the traffic jam of people behind me slam on their brakes and maneuver around me. Not once, not twice. Probably not a good idea in a crosswalk trying to get across Market. But I only got run into a couple of times. Eventually, I found myself walking alone--people had figured out I need a wide berth. And I got to shoot and shoot and shoot, until I realized that I was almost late for the reception. I took a couple of last shots, put my camera away, but I still looked up as I made my way those last three blocks to the hotel. Beautiful architecture in a beautiful city on a gorgeous day.