Play in the Street

With images like this I'm never sure if we are to critique the photo itself or the artwork that is photographed.

I'd guess you're here to critique my work, not the artist who did the mural. Afterall, this site is about photographers not muralists. Then again, I can understand how it's difficult to separate the two issues.

I try to see if I can understand what the photographer had in mind for the shot, ask myself if he accomplished that mission, then judge the product within that framework. In other words I take each image at a time and in its own context. The problem with these grades is that there's no easy way to express all that. Of course most around here don't bother to begin with so there you go.

Tris, thank you for presenting us this wonderful mural. Not having seen the mural myself, it is hard to say whether you have rendered it accurately, but I would suspect you have, and rather well at that. I particularly admire the lighting, which brings the bricks of the wall into relief. I won't rate this, because so much of the aesthetics of photographs of art is derived from the art rather than from the photograph (as it should be). But I will say that I think you have done a fine job here.

I'm glad you can appreciate this mural at that level, Brian. There's a wealth of this work around San Francisco but it isn't always easy to find or get to to document ably and I feel excitement when I do stumble upon a new example of this form.

Some time back an old brick building was torn down over at 3rd and Townsend Streets, and lo and behold what came blinking out of the shadows but this new majestic view of Uncle Sam along the southern exposure of an equally old brick building previously masked immediately to the south by the razed structure.

The wall with this newly-discovered mural is part of an old warehouse used originally to store rail freight. This building stands one block north of Pac Bell Park on 3rd Street. I don't know the age of the building recently demolished but I would wager it was at least 70 or more years old. (I need to check that at the County Recorder's Office.) If so, then we could reasonably date the creation of this Uncle Sam image to the 30's or before.

The primary reason it has withstood the ravages of weather and time is because it was closely shielded by the neighboring building. As it is the paint has severely faded.

This is a single huge image of Uncle Sam applied directly to the uncovered red brick surface, so the paint pigments have over time become part and parcel of the wall structure itself. I have captured this image and tried to restore it to something like its original state. It may be viewed here:

Uncle Sam Wants You!

The point is I happen to think this art should be preserved in some manner and if possible made viewable to the public. If anyone discovers a better means than photography, please let me know.

You're right about my effort to faithfully render the colors, though this is difficult (if not impossible) to achieve because of the context of available light and limited vantage points available to the photographer within which these pieces reside. At the least I endeavor to give representative images.