FIELD NOTE // FN-010 | LOCATION: The Mission, San Francisco | DATE: 2025-12-10
An abrupt reminder that the watchers are being watched.
A lazy Sunday in the Mission. I was at a crosswalk, burst shutter primed, hunting for clusters of people crossing, no particular subject, just the dense chaos that sometimes is actually worth keeping. The surgical clap of my Lumix. A few milliseconds of light.
Then: yiiiIIPP!!
Hard to miss, but my eye was buried in the viewfinder. My other senses caught up first—the shuffle of synthetic fabric, manic calls of distress. By the time I pulled back into the world, she was standing right in front of me.
"Are you filming 'us' and shit? Are you going to show me doing drugs and drinking and shit?"
I said “it's cool, I'm not here for you.” We walked to the other side while she had more to say. Threats. Then a switch—sweet now: "Naw you cool, I know what you're doing." Then back to anger, just as fast. Thirty, maybe forty-five seconds of unknowns.
And then she turned to a man on the sidewalk and seemed to forget I existed.
I noticed the scarring on her neck. Couldn't say where from. But if it felt as bad as it looked, I'd try to numb that too.
The shot in this post is from the burst I fired just before my brain confirmed the commotion was for me. You can see the fair citizens across the street, none the wiser. Coming from Oakland, I like the Mission for all the things it isn't when I'm in the city but it carries weight. A reminder to pick your spots. To not get greedy.
That's life.
