free

Last December, I went to San Francisco for the day, just to spend a few hours enjoying the city and seeing the Pacific, the ocean I used to live near, but now rarely see. I went down to Ocean Beach and shot a lot of film while the rain poured down. This may be my favorite photo of the day; it's a Holgaroid shot, taken with some of my last stash of Type 85 film. This is the positive, and it's a double exposure.

I love the way the seagulls in this photo appear just into the frame, leaving so much empty sky in the shot. This is what the sky above the Pacific is like: endless, vast, birds dodging in and out, and then, nothing but freedom and promise.


Celluloid Pictures of Living (2007)
Title taken from the song by Roxy Music