Wednesday, October 7th 2009

San Francisco LovEvolution 2009 Recap

(Warning: Some of the images and links within this post may contain adult content.)

Last Saturday, after a rough round of Oktoberfest celebrations at Schroeder’s the evening before, I called up comrade Plug1 from WhatImSeeing.com and asked if he had any interest in shooting LovEvolution with me. I’ve never attended the event, but have heard wild stories from those that had and figured it would be a prime photo opp.

Plug and I agreed to meet at 2:00p.m. in front of the Trinity Plaza Apartments on 8th and Market streets. I arrived early and caught the tail end of the parade. It was a scene. The streets were flooded with partygoers -- very young partygoers I might add (many clearly under age), most of who were zorped out on pills, powders, alcohol and lord knows what else. I saw a few people that had gone to the dark side, but overall, at this particular time, it was a happy, fun loving crowd.

After Plug arrived, the two of us lurked over to United Nations Plaza, positioned ourselves right in the thick of the crowd, and began gorilla shooting the passerby. For the most part, everyone was cool with us taking his or her picture. I caught a few dirty looks and a couple under-the-breath mumbles, but that’s about it. I love shooting with Plug because, like me, he is definitely not scared to get up close and personal. In fact, I’d say Plug is one of the more ballsy street photogs I know.

Somewhere between 2:30-3:30p.m., comrade Josh Sullivan walked down the hill from the TenderNob to meet us. He’s another photographer that’s not scared to get up in your grill. He shoots film with a short little 18-55mm lens, so he's forced to get especially close.

Around 5:00p.m., the three of us ventured off to liquor store for tall cans. We lurked up and down Market Street with our beers -- it was the first time I had ever brown bagged it on Market during daylight hours -- and eventually found ourselves back in UN Plaza, this time lurking along the perimeter. And this is when things started getting weird. It was clear the drugs were starting to wear off, people were getting sloppy drunk, roughnecks were beginning to infiltrate the scene and a cast of creepy naked old men had positioned themselves all throughout the plaza. Now, couple that with the fact that the sun was beginning to set and a blustery wind had picked up off the Bay, so all those in skimp clothing (or nude) were freezing their arses off and irritable. Plug1 summed the scene up best: “This is like modern day Babylon, man.”

We hung around till about 6:30 before parting ways. I came home with about 300 images. I would have shot more, but I only had one memory card on me, so I was forced to edit while shooting. Plug1 on the other hand said he shot a staggerintg 1,200 images. As for Josh, since he was shooting film, he walked away with somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 shots.

I gotta say, in the 12 years I’ve been living in San Francisco, LovEvolution was one of the craziest things I have ever witnessed -- and believe me, I’ve seen some off-the-wall ish in this town. I'll definitely be documenting next year's festivities.

Below are a small handful of some of my photos. The rest of my pics are available for viewing HERE.

Also, be sure to check out Plug1’s images HERE, followed by Josh Sullivan’s HERE.