FIELD NOTE // FN-021 | LOCATION: MARKET ST, SF No. 1052 Southbound | DATE: 2026-01-12
No. 1052 Southbound
No. 1052 F Train, southbound on Market towards the Ferry Building and the inevitable tourist trap (sea lions excepted) on a chilly Saturday morning.
While there are downsides to the season, I was genuinely excited to have that cold winter San Francisco experience: stopping by a random cafe, grabbing a warm cup of something, and milling up, down, through, and around the streets of downtown. I wanted to let my eyes soak it in, January air enhancing every sip and every step.
But the undeniable steam billowing from the street immediately caught my attention.
I had yet to grab that warm beverage. In fact, I meant to switch out to the zoom lens to compress the street, but the prime was still locked onto the body.
Hesitation.
Admittedly, I can be a bit of an "order of operations" type individual, and the first order of operation was getting something hot to combat the cold. Yet even in a densely packed part of downtown, moments can be fleeting. I took a beat too long.
Juggling the lens out of the bag... and going through all that friction, I missed the first obvious scene with the train crossing the threshold of the crosswalk and the steam. Since Market Street is pretty much a straight line, I could see some distance away that a new train would be next up, though in more time than I wanted to wait.
But wait I did.
And then, disappointment hit. The steam began to die down from its initial highly volumetric, highly cinematic texture to faint wisps of loose threads. It was hardly worth a photo.
No. 1052 continued to close in. In front of me, a cadre of people gathered around a hat stand near the entrance to Ross. On the left, across the street, a larger group huddled together at the bus stop, waiting to go in the opposite direction. Lights flashed, SFPD signaling that they were going to illegally run a red light (let's be real, maybe legally... it's the cops after all). I fired off a few frames as they cut through Market.
Finally, next up: No. 1052.
Just as the train entered the frame, the vents released a fresh breath. The steam kicked back up into a thick, heavy cloud, even better than before.
There was plenty of time to attempt this shot. The train was stopped for quite some time as cross traffic passed through, allowing for a little experimenting.
I like this moment because of our two central figures: the girl in the middle with a distinct fashion style (I was instantly reminded of that mid-late 90s big city look I saw in movies growing up) and our train…looking beautiful, recently waxed, imposing over the crosswalk. The smoke leaned perfectly to the left, masking the men behind it.
While a part of me always wants to keep the photo in color because of the impeccable paint jobs on the F-trains, after giving the first draft a look, Black & White was the image. In many ways, the photo remains timeless. A true snapshot of modern life with a neo-noir callback that still thrives today. For fun, I’ve included a non-archive frame (the color images with the bikes) from the in-between moments while I was waiting for No. 1052.
I'm glad I executed a manual override on my order of operations and focused on this. I have to constantly remind myself that the moment is the moment. It evaporates faster than steam. Capture it now, or you may spend the rest of your life chasing a ghost.
