Dignity Never Been Photographed 003

San Francisco, 2023

Welcome back to Dignity Never Been Photographed, a series in which I discuss a meaningful photograph I’ve taken

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I took this picture through the window of an airplane approaching Oakland International Airport (OAK) in early January 2023.

As I mentioned last time, my wife and I were married on April 1, 2023. In January of that year, I went to Las Vegas for my bachelor party. I was aiming for the most stereotypical bachelor party experience possible, almost as if I was playing the part of “bachelor” in a non-existent film.

The weekend was a great success. We stayed at Caesers Palace (always stay at Caesars), lost a little bit of money playing blackjack, ate a tremendous amount of beef, won a little bit of money playing roulette, shot guns at Battlefield Vegas, and patronized The Palomino Club, Vegas’s only full-nude strip club with an alcohol license. I left after two days with a sore throat and a headache, declaring I didn’t need to return to Las Vegas for many years. I haven’t been back since, although it has started to appeal again recently.

I flew home to San Francisco on Spirit Airlines, the cheapest option available, which meant I had to fly into OAK instead of SFO. It was a quick flight, and I enjoyed watching the landscapes of western Nevada and eastern California float by tens of thousands of feet below. I remember flying over the Sierras and admiring the dense snowpack, the result of a series of atmospheric rivers that had recently hit California. Eventually we made it back to the Bay. The pilot flew the plane past the airport out over Tiburon and Marin and the Golden Gate, then swung around east to approach the airport from the west. As soon as we crossed the Bay Bridge, I pressed my lens flush against the window and snapped this shot.

I like this photo because of its sense of scale. San Francisco sits like a jewel box beneath the wing of the plane, laid out in all its topographical splendor. The tip of the wing of the plane is emblazoned with a cute little otter, a funny element I did not notice at the time.

I like the hard angular line of the Bay Bridge and the way it blends seamlessly into the smooth squiggle of Interstate 80. I like the highrises of SOMA in the foreground and the blocks of low-rise buildings behind, rolling over the hills of the city into the distance. I like Sutro Tower in the distance, barely but clearly there.

I also like the mood of this image. San Francisco is a bright and colorful city, but this photo is mostly whites and blacks and greys, plus the oddly unsettling teal-brown of the bay. There is still a warmth to it, however, particularly in the clouds at the top of the image, where faint notes of pink and yellow peek through. It all adds up to something strange and difficult to parse. Sometimes this image makes me happy, sometimes it makes me sad.

But it always makes me feel affection for my home.