photodocumenting "painted ladies" in san francisco - a feat that proved challenging

the painted ladies are a historic attraction in the bay, but i was nonetheless thrilled to peruse for myself the sloping row of colorful queen anne style residences in alamo square park and throughout the city. these victorian and edwardian style houses are generally 2-3 stories, featuring multiple balconies, large porches, and most notably -- bright multi-colored facades accentuating architectural detail (termed "painted ladies" for use of 3 or more colors).

between 1849 and 1915, about 48,000 of these embellished wooden row houses were built throughout the city, but most of the 14,000 or so remaining "painted ladies" were constructed in the 1890's. during ww1 and ww2 a number of homes were painted a battleship gray with surplus navy paint. many more were demolished, stripped of distinctive features, covered over with tarpaper, brick, stucco or aluminum siding, or otherwise devoured by fire after the 1906 earthquake.

the painted ladies were made possible by newly created streetcar and cable car lines, as well as money from the gold and silver rushes earlier in the century. something of the lavish ornamentation is in fact attributed to the aspirations of those newcomers who made fortunes after this period of prospecting. the three main styles that emerged in these victorian homes were italianate (popular in the 1870's, and identified by a flat roof), stick-eastlake (popular in the 1880's, identifiable by ornate woodwork to doors, frames, and bay windows), and queen anne (popular in the 1890's and exhibiting turrets, towers, gabled roof, etc.), with some crossover especially seen in remodeled homes.

my process for documentation was utterly plagued by a contradictory "stop and go" movement and a distracting pressure to capture whatever caught my fancy during an ambitious scheme to document the full spectrum of visually distinctive exterior residential characteristics found on tens of thousands of extant late 19th and early 20th century "painted ladies."

i had tried my best to mentally prepare for these problems in advance, especially since i was on "vacation" with family and the "painted ladies" were only a small facet of the day-long tour. the short window of time was one thing, but the transition from the "cooler" to "warmer" natural lighting conditions became a struggle i usually manage to deal with. here, it greatly challenged my usual approach to capturing architectural details.

this is to say, i consider the output to be heavily compromised, but i did take literally hundreds of photographs of everything from whole facades to the fine details that make these houses such distinctive eye candy. nevertheless, photo editing or post-processing did very little to convey the mood i'm accustomed to developing in my photography.

in many ways, this rushed experience served as an experiment to determine what sort of documentation i could produce in rather alien circumstances. alternately, i could perhaps view it as a "teaser" for what's to come, when i can navigate through these neighborhoods at my own pace.