As you hustle through San Francisco, head down toward your phone, there is a blurry background all around you telling a story of the city. What’s splattered across the walls and billboards — from street art and graffiti to tech ads — makes up the landscape of urban life.
In this series of photographs, I challenge the notion that cities are made whole by its inhabitants, instead suggesting that there is a poignant and intertwined existence between people and physical things — architecture, ads, artwork — that build off of each other’s continued presence. The resulting space created is full of recognizable personality and flavor.
For those with trained eyes and a willingness to explore, this symbiosis is on full display. Advertisements and billboards add personality to the city’s ethos; graffiti and signage impart layers of meaning to otherwise simple storefronts and scaffoldings. Certain junctures appear to have minds of their own.
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The San Francisco of today is markedly different than that of the decades prior. Witness the latest iteration of the shifting city before it changes.
