Closer to Home

San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order took effect on March 17,2020. As well as imposing constraints, these restrictions created opportunities—opportunities for unstructured time to meander through my neighborhood with a mind uncluttered by concerns about where I needed to be and what I needed to be doing, and opportunities to observe my environment with enhanced awareness and appreciation. What I discovered was an overwhelming abundance of flora that thrives in our temperate climate, flora that evoked metaphors of social cohesion, of regeneration, of the virus itself. Everywhere I looked I encountered flora that stopped me in my tracks. So I started carrying my camera.

These images are bounded by time— March 17 through October 31, 2021—and by space—a two-square-mile area roughly bounded by the Fort Mason Community Garden on the east, the Presidio Main Parade Lawn on the west, San Francisco Bay on the north, and Chestnut Street on the south. Constraints and opportunities: sometimes they go hand in hand.