Category Archives: WORLD WIDE: Gay around the Globe!

19th c. Technology 21st c. Subject Matter: Artisanal Photographer Eric Robinson to shoot SF Leather

Eric Robinson takes the techniques of photography back to its roots. He works in wet plate collodion processes, producing one of a kind plates on glass. Using a traditional view camera, he cuts an anachronistic figure while exposing the plates. No shutter, he lifts a sliding door on the camera to expose the plate and counts. One, two, three…twenty-nine, thirty seconds or more. A portraitist, his subjects experience a taste of the early sitter’s experience. It is important to stay still. The help of devices may be sought. Portraiture at its best is a collaborative process, an agreement between the photographer and the model. What began in the midwest as a series of portraits by a graduate student of his professor and his partner has become the focus of a cross-country road-trip to document a lifestyle, a subculture, and the extended family of a friend and rogue scholar. On the road somewhere in Nevada as of this posting, Eric should be arriving in San Francisco sometime late Friday, in time for many of the festivities associated with the Dore (Up Your) Alley street fair. Read more about Eric at the HomoGenii site. The photos in the slide show below were taken during a shoot in April, 2010 in Carbondale, Illinois, where the photographer is taking an MFA in Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University. His undergraduate degree is in Chemistry.

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Sights seen at Mendocino’s Rattlesnake Creek, Hole-in-the-Wall swim Site.

Warm weather lured us up U.S. 101 to the Hole-in-the-Wall swim site on Mendocino’s Rattlesnake Creek. Right off the highway, down a neatly hidden, meandering trail, it hides in plain sight. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there. We took the half-naked otter handyman of Timbers (not to be confused with the half-naked muscle-bear handyman of Sunfair) and his monkey-man hobby photographer boyfriend. Down the trail to the water and the picturesque rock formations that give the place its name: the cool hole already hosted a half dozen hippies, a few cute naked nature boys, a woman-and-kid or two and some dogs. [photoevent: 9 July 2010]

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More San Francisco Street Art Seen

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Here comes Captain Cupcake! …and other Humboldt sights.

A trip up the coast to eat fish yields some sights from the Seascape Restaurant in Trinidad, California’s smallest incorporated city with a population of about 300. The tiny town hosts the Trinidad to Clam Beach Run in February and the Fish Festival in June. It is also home to Humboldt State University’s Fred Telonicher Marine Laboratory. Humboldt County has six other incorporated cities, about 60 unincorporated communities, and about 75 ghost towns…from Acorn to Wilder.

Here Comes Captain Cupcake - from the Eureka Times-Standard

Trinidad Head

Skater in Hoodie out the Window of the Seascape Fish Restaurant

Seascape Fish Restaurant Trinidad California

Caps in Red Booth

Seascape Fish Restaurant Wait Staff

Coffee Sugar Chrome and Gold

Carson Mansion in Eureka - Now a Mens' Club

Sights seen at scene site: San Francisco Pride Celebration

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Pink Saturday Shootings in the Castro. One dead, two wounded.

Police secure the crime scene at Castro and Market Saturday night

On the eve of San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride parade and celebration, a young man was shot and killed. Another man and a woman were wounded. The suspect is in custody and the weapon has been recovered. The victim, Stephen Powell, and the suspect are both 19 years old.

In recent years, the Halloween celebration in the Castro has been plagued by “bridge and tunnel” violence, including some fatal incidents instigated by straight youths who use the masked occasion to settle beefs imported from the ‘burbs. It is not known at this time whether this incident was gang-related, gay drama related, a bashing…or what.

In other news, former Mr. SF Leather Ray Tilton reports via Facebook that he was roughed up by four unknown assailants outside of the 440 Club, site of the former Daddy’s bar. He is shaken and sore, but otherwise alright.

Local news and KPIX video is available at the CBS news channel 5 website.

San Francisco Street Art Seen

San Francisco Street Art Seen on June 26th, 2010 in the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood.

Surveillance at Kansas Kum & Go

The proprietors of convenience stores are not the only ones interested in pointing cameras at their customers. A quick stop for gas, snacks and  corn-fed, slushie-finished boy-shooting on the way out west.  May, 2010.

Don’t Ask: Camping Soldiers are all a Gaga in Afghanistan

Taking a break from the horrors of war, these US soldiers camp it up to Lady Gaga’s hit Telephone. They don’t ask and don’t tell. But they do keep camping and dancing the swiveling hips. Thanks to Joe Jervis of Joe My God for this bit of strange fabulosity.

Bacha Bazi – The “dancing boys” of Afghanistan

Private dancer: The practice of bacha bazi ('boy for play') is growing in Afghanistan. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

The PBS documentary series Frontline has produced an investigative piece on the ancient Afghan practice of Bacha Bazi, translated as “boy play.” Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi reports in The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan. Watch the full 53 minute program on-line at PBS. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad also reported on the apparently growing phenomena in September of last year in the UK’s Guardian.