No Mind

The Sentinel Building ... 916 Kearny

I have a little Canon pocket camera. After seeing Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, and Robert Frank at SFMOMA yesterday, I decided maybe it's about time I learned what the settings, other than automatic, actually did. So I got my pen and scratch pad, the camera, some change, and went to Happy Donuts. ( it was early, and I can barely form a coherent thought without a massive coffee infusion) I started to take pictures of the Sentinel Building across the street, changed one setting at a time, and recorded what I had done. I tried the artistic shots, extreme close-ups, the turn the camera on its side shots, artfully framing drunks by the building shots, monkeying with the color shots, the whole schmeer. About 45 pictures later it was time to go back upstairs and start on a proposal for work. Finished my cup, killed the donut, pocketed my stuff and thought, just one more quick one. Pulled the camera, didn't really bother to frame anything, pushed the button and went up. Of course, that turned out to be the best image. No mind wins again.

The Sentinel Building, or Columbus Tower, is currently owned by Francis Ford Coppola, housing the American Zoetrope company and café Niebaum on the ground floor and sidewalk. The flatiron building is a former home to Enrico Banducci's original hungry i, Trident Productions, (Columbus Recorders: early Dead, Kingsmen) and Caesars Grill.(one of those places during Prohibition)