PUBLICATIONS: 70'S SAN FRANCISCO: Urban Portraits
By Carlotta Boettcher
A photo essay of vintage images from San Francisco’s 1970s' urban culture.
In the fall of 1970 I was an art student living in Paris. I traveled with friends to harvest Champagne grapes in Les Ricey Bas in the Alpes de Haut Provence, where King Louis XIV's favorite Champagne, the Rose de Riceys, was made. The proceeds from the grape harvest changed my life.
I bought tickets on Icelandic Air out of Luxembourg, and embarked on what would become a 6 month road trip through the United States, and 25 years life in San Francisco.
A friend welcomed our arrival in Miami with a copy of Stuart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, the pages sang of the new spirit of change my peers were experiencing.
By the fall of 1971 I was hired to drive a car from New York City to San Francisco. Two weeks later, as scheduled, I arrived at the Panhandle and dropped off the car on Fulton Street.
I fell in love with San Francisco and rented a flat on Sanchez and 18th street, just in time for Holloween on the Castro. My 25 year long stay in San Francisco had begun!
I purchased a new camera to replace my beloved Contax stolen in Washington DC from the trunk of my car and began photographing.
The images in this volume reflect portraits of urban San Francisco and San Franciscans on the streets, in their neighborhoods and communities, at public and private events and gatherings that took place in the city during these times, in an era of pre-cell phones & pre-personal computers punctuated by deep changes and personal transformations.
