An “urban hike” to Mission San Francisco de Asis

16 January, 2008 by Adam R. Paul

In keeping with “Wordless Wednesday,” I will keep the text to a minimum.

We walked from home through the Lower Haight and Castro …

20 short minutes later, we arrived at Mission San Francisco de Asis (AKA “Mission Dolores”), the oldest building in San Francisco, originally built in 1776 …

The cemetery was my favorite part, a nice balance of overgrown and tended. It, along with the military cemetery in the San Francisco Presidio, is the only cemetery in the city …

10 Responses

on 16 January, 2008 at 15:12 montucky

Gosh, I haven’t been to the city since the 80’s. It’s great to see your photos of a little of it!
on 16 January, 2008 at 19:03 mon@rch

love the black and whites and the colors in those buildings, wow
on 17 January, 2008 at 08:00 Mary Carlson

Hi Adam – gosh, I had forgotten about the “artistic” area of San Francisco. Very attractive. It looks as though everyone still takes pride in their homes and keeps them well maintained. And it has been many years since I visited the Mission. I surely don’t remember the cemetery; thanks so much for sharing your photos. And thanks for dropping by my blog. I certainly hope you take the opportunity to visit the Panoche Valley area; I’m amazed at how different that area is for birding. So many different birds we would not see here on the coast. I would love to go back and hope to see a condor, albeit that would be closer to Pinnacles.
on 17 January, 2008 at 11:39 Bernie Kasper

These are awesome Adam, I am with you on the cemetery, we have a cemetery here in Madison that is full of beautiful ornate statues and headstones but I feel a little strange going there to shoot. Did that bother you at all it makes me feel a little uncomfortable but I would love to photograph some of them.

Maybe I am a little too uptight about it, what are your feelings on it ?
on 18 January, 2008 at 03:17 winterwoman

Incredible photographs. Some folks around here have attempted painting their houses very colorfully – suggesting the ones in SF. But nobody quite does it like SF! I also love the BW photos and all the architectural and sculpture shots. Very nice.
on 21 January, 2008 at 22:10 Adam R. Paul

Montucky: Thanks! It’s a fun place to walk around and photograph for sure!

Monarch: Thank you – I always enjoy cemetery photography and it seems to be particularly suited to B&W conversion.

Mary: At least the parts of SF I frequent are pretty lovely – the Haight, Castro, Hayes Valley, and Noe Valley in particular are chock-full of very well-kept Victorians. Downtown, well that’s another story, but I spend very little time there.

Bernie: It doesn’t bother me even a little bit – in fact, I quite like it! The only time it’d maybe be weird would be if there was a funeral or something going on, but these cemeteries are long since inactive.

Winterwoman: Thanks! One of these days I should do a photo series of the more colorful houses in the Haight – there are a lot of them indeed!
on 1 February, 2008 at 10:52 ankush

nice photos, i love the angle of building in the first one.
on 2 February, 2008 at 09:26 Adam R. Paul

Thanks, Ankush!
on 11 February, 2008 at 17:05 nicole

I love your pictures they rock.
on 13 February, 2008 at 09:50 Adam R. Paul

Thanks, Nicole!