A few months ago I took a trip.
That trip included myself and a few friends, a rented Prius, an unholy amount of camera gear, and several thousands of miles. I’m sure some kind of blog will be born out of the photos and stories from that trip, but for now we’ll start with the San Francisco files.
I love San Francisco. Great food, even better coffee, and on this trip, catching up with a good friend I hadn’t seen in a few years. Not the “Hey let’s meet up for drinks and politely talk and awkward hug and see ya” kind of friend. The “I’ll let you and your friend crash at my place for several days on air mattresses and enjoy the insanely cool view out the back deck, also I’ll bake you 23 million different kinds of pies and pastries, and PS, you’re welcome to the entire whiskey collection.” kind of friend.
Her name is Kelly. Kelly is awesome. Kelly has one rule when you stay at her place. That one rule is to not let Jasper the Abnormally Large and Loveable Cat out, because Jasper is sneaky and wants to go ride the trolley cars and tour Alcatraz, and everyone has to try very hard to prevent him from doing so.
So my friend Jeremiah Spray and I were staying in this really gorgeous apartment, stuffed on amazing pies and pastries, enjoying the great coffee and the great view one morning, when I realized I hadn’t closed the sliding glass window next to the back deck. I then realized that I hadn’t seen Jasper the Abnormally Large and Loveable Cat at all that morning since Kelly had left for work. And so the next step in that scenario is sheer panic. There’s nothing out that sliding glass window except a 2 story drop into bushes. And so we looked, expecting to find a chalk outline of a large cat and fur everywhere, but found nothing. He wasn’t in the apartment, he wasn’t outside, he was just gone. Poof. No Jasper.
I’d come to San Francisco, reconnected with an old friend, and lost her huge cat.
Have I mentioned that Jasper is large? Not like too many cheeseburgers large. Like. Bro, do you even lift large. He’s just a ginormous cat.
I think the search went on for about an hour, with scenarios playing out in my head of how could a 100 pound cat fall two stories and walk away, to where can I buy a gigantic cat at 10AM in San Francisco and what do you paint a cat with, to maybe if we pack up everything and leave now, we can be in Los Angeles by the time Kelly gets back home…….and then we found Jasper. See, Jasper, aside from being awesome, also likes to scare the hell out of tourists by contorting himself into a 3 inch ball and hiding in a box of matched in Kelly’s closet.
Maybe it wasn’t a box of matches. But it was small, I know that. Jerk.
After we survived that morning’s adventures with Jasper, we got to meet up with this amazing family for engagement photos. I dearly love San Francisco for many reasons, but for this shoot it was simply that you can drive a few minutes in any direction and have any kind of background you want for your shoot. Beach, parks, city, trolleys, warm weather, cold weather, name it and you can go find it.
Sincere thanks to Kelly for amazing hospitality and for not killing us when we temporarily misplaced Jasper.
Huge thanks to Sandra and Greg for a wonderful, wonderful shoot in a gorgeous town.
Ten thousand points to the guy in the suit with the cigarette for playing along and letting us take one of my favorite black and white shots ever.
Stay classy, San Francisco. I’ll see you shortly.
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