Mission Mission

The Hamburger Eyes blog today detailed the advantages of enrolling in the Photo Epicenter Tutorial Program:

Photo Epicenter provides the ultimate darkroom printing experience. The black and white darkroom is a private room with professionally maintained equipment and materials and is readily available for all your printing needs. The color darkroom is one of the best in the country, the ultimate workspace and one of the only of it’s kind with natural light to assess print quality. The color darkroom is also professionally maintained and calibrated so you know you’re getting the most out of your photos. These tutorials come in packages of two sessions for either color or black and white.

Link. Packages cost $200, but include tons of dark room time and first-hand wisdom from pros like Hamburger Eyes guru Ray Potes, so sign up while you still can.

Photo by photoepicenter.

Mike from Inhabitat tips us to this item, a portrait project by the Curbs and Stoops design collective. Last week, they set up a couple of cameras and a “Free Portraits (w00t!)” sign on Valencia Street by Mission Playground, and started making portraits. It was a sunny summer day, so all of the hundred or so images make our community look nice and summery. They are located here, and a blog entry about this process (with behind the scenes photos) is here. Thanks, Mike!

Our new favorite thing to do at Bender’s: Examine the dozens of funny confiscated (or donated or maybe discarded?) IDs encased in three custom-made tabletops across from the food counter. Some are funny because the pictures are funny. Some are funny because the names are funny. Some are funny because the quality of the forgery is funny. At the very least, you’re sure to at least find one that looks like someone you know.

Our new second favorite thing to do at Bender’s: Eat burgers at the bar’s free Sunday afternoon backyard barbecue.

Previously on Mission Mission:

You Heard it Here First (and then the Chronicle caught on): Bender’s Bar Great for Low-Key Nights Out

Bars of the Mission: Bender’s Bar

Tonight Soap Gallery hosts a reception for an exhibition featuring Verda Alexander‘s installation Run A Ways:

Transportation systems have evolved to become great feats of engineering that embody our society’s advancement and our anxieties.

Our ability to travel at great speeds gets us there fast, but a wrong turn, technical malfunction, human error or terrorist act manifest the precarious nature of travel.

Yeah we just got back from a road trip to San Diego, and it’s true: travel wouldn’t be nearly so fun and romantic if its nature weren’t so precarious. Also, we like cardboard stuff. The party includes live music and runs from 6-9pm.

Previously on Mission Mission:

I Love Living in the City: Cardburg Closing Night Video

Graying Matt Gonzalez Photographed a lot at Soap Gallery Opening

I saw this poster on the Valencia Street Art Wall yesterday. What’s the deal? Guerrilla marketing for an epic comeback tour? I would much rather see The Sonics than the Police or Stone Temple Pilots or something.

Also, this was extra eerie to me because last week we were standing across from Popeye’s and Katie pointed out a poster advertising their new “Boss Sauce”. After that, I sang “Boss Sauce” to the tune of Boss Hoss for daaays.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Valencia Street Art Wall at Midnight

Ad Watch: Meth, Zionism, Oil Addiction and Kitty Cats

Telstar Logistics just added this fine bit of composition to its photostream. House of Brakes can be found here.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Religious Awakening at 16th Street BART?

The exhibition is called Spring and by Summer Fall, and it’s been up for a while at Ratio 3 on Stevenson. From the press release:

Ryan McGinley will present new color photographs that chronicle the summer road trips he has taken across the United States in the past three years. Inspired by images from nudist magazines from the 1960s and early 1970s, McGinley places his naked subjects in unusual and breathtaking situations. McGinley uses the vast and varied landscape of the U.S. as his backdrop, from arid deserts to lush green fields. An energetic feeling of idyllic freedom and youthful innocence suffuses the work. Floating bodies suggest an infinite weightlessness while other figures slip into smoke and constellations of fireworks. McGinley’s work offers an intimate glimpse into a playful constructed world of sensuality, adventure, and the sublime.

Link.

Katie met Erica Ginelle at an art thing in Pacific Heights. They bonded briefly because they were by far the two youngest people there. Plus, Erica has a gallery in the Mission, and Katie has a blog about the Mission.

Anyhow, Ginelle’s and Erica’s gallery (which is called Iceberger) is having an opening for a new exhibition by Richard T. Walker Saturday from 7-9pm:

Walker utilizes spoken dialogue, text and original music compositions to generate video and photographic works that explore complex relationships between language, the environment and the human condition.

This means, among other things, big pictures of epic landscapes made richer by the addition of thought-provoking little pieces of text. (Click above picture to make it big enough to be able to read the text.)

Previously on Mission Mission:

Little Star’s ‘I Assure You — We’re Open’ Sign Celebrated in Techy Web-Writing Circles

On Friday, Valentina at Threadtrend published a nice feature on Fabric8. Note the colorful rendering of Rip-Off Artist Mildred in the lower right-hand corner of this photo. Valentina profiles the shop:

It’s been around online since 1995, and it’s now its a real-life store holding court in the city’s happening Mission district. Like a lot of inflatable obstacle course shops in the area, it’s pretty teeny tiny, but the super-friendly owner Olivia Ongpin keeps it brimming with paintings, t-shirts, home design, bags, and jewelry from “urban independent designers.”

Link.

Electric streetcars braving a flood at 16th and Folsom circa 1905 (click to enlarge).

Hustle and bustle at 21st and Mission in the 1940s (click to enlarge).

All tarted up for Christmas (click to enlarge). Note the “Mission Miracle Mile” seasonal signage in the upper left. Should we start bounce house for sale calling it that again?

All these photos and more are collected in Historic Photos of San Francisco by historian Rebecca Schall. The author appears this Saturday at 3pm at the Fisherman’s Wharf Barnes & Noble. Stop by for more photos and history, or to find out about her time developing museum exhibits at Mission Dolores.