News Release

San Francisco — A collection of more than 150 images offers a window into the lives of San Franciscans in a new photo exhibition entitled Picture This: Family Photographs of Everyday San Francisco opening on Sept. 17 at the Main Library. The photos, culled from the Shades of San Francisco photo collecting project, depict San Franciscans at work and at play, from the late 1800s to the present.

Through the Shades project, residents from the Western Addition, Mission, Ocean View/Merced/Ingleside (OMI), and Sunset neighborhoods submitted family photos capturing the flavor of San Francisco life. Photos depict the deeply personal, as well as larger historical events, such as the 1906 earthquake and fire and the 1918 flu epidemic. From hanging laundry on Laguna Street in the 1930s to showing off the latest set of wheels in the Mission in 1928 to an Ocean Beach getaway in 1914 to a Quincenera celebration in 1998, these photographs illustrate both the differences that span time and communities and the similarities in how we document and preserve our memories.

The photo collection is on display in the Skylight Gallery on the sixth floor of the Main Library, 100 Larkin St., until Dec. 31. An online version of the exhibition is available at www.sfpl.org/news/onlineexhibits/shades/. A replica of a vintage 1955 cut-out from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk will be available at the exhibition for visitors to pose with and capture new memories on film.

Shades of San Francisco is a community history photography project of the San Francisco History Center at the San Francisco Public Library. On Shades photo days, neighborhood residents are invited to bring in their photographs so that they can be copied and added to the Library’s Historical Photograph Collection. The goal of the project is to add images of ethnic and cultural diversity, as well as broader representation of all city neighborhoods, to the archives.

This exhibition is free and open to the public.
For more information, please call 415-557-4277.

NOTE TO EDITOR: Photos from the Picture This: Family Photographs of Everyday San Francisco exhibition are available upon request.