FoundSF

"I was there..."

by Stephen Vincent, 2026

Dolores Park, 2026.

All photos by Stephen Vincent

I do not ask myself why I am drawn to take these photographs and to listen and expand on the stories of folks who read their books and/or write in their journals while sitting on the benches or lying in the grass in Dolores Park. Its 16 acres of grounds that on the hill above my home in San Francisco’s Mission District. The park’s well mowed grass slope is punctuated with carefully cultivated shrub and flower beds, very tall Canary and Date Palm trees, a small but pronounced gathering of dark and wonderfully twisted Pepperwoods, while close to the edges of Dolores, 20th and Church Streets are long ago planted Ficus ones with their thick, wide, gray and rippled trunks.

The Park is a popular community magnet. Depending on weather or time of day, on the grass there will be sun bathers on blankets, occasionally fully naked ones, unhoused sleepers under their jackets, hand holding straight and gay couples, picnic and birthday groups as well as countless individuals either watching or following their “on” or “off” leash dogs’. During the day all these elements will variously combine to help paint the Park’s larger and ever-changing panorama within which are the rising both straight and curving asphalt walk ways are marked by the benches where folks read, write, converse or look downtown to the City’s awesome skyline of luminous silver and gray buildings.

I must stop here to say the Park is not without an interesting history. In the late 1800s, the land doubled as the site of a synagogue and a Jewish graveyard. To absorb and build for the City’s growing population, the graveyard business was shifted; it is said 8,000 Jewish remains were moved south for reburial in Colma. I somehow do not believe the spirits in those bones are completely dead and gone. Many of those emigrant Jews from Europe were politically progressive. For decades the Park continues to be the home of countless and powerful demonstrations against wars, for civil rights and with the Castro District nearby celebrations of Gay life. When those happen, I continue to sense the activist spirits in those remaining bones are alive here and speaking from the depths of these very grounds.

What is your good book? In my daily walks that’s the question with which I introduce myself. I am an artist and poet. I have a project where I photograph folks reading their books. Can I take a picture of you with your book?

Looking for subjects, I discover is a kind of fishing. In fact, Richard Brautigan’s novel, Trout Fishing in America, is a talisman! I ask questions.

What’s the story about. What’s your favorite part? Why? If we reach a dead end, I change the subject. What do you think of Trump and what is going on in Iran? Will you be here tomorrow for the demonstration??

Back at my desk I write to remember the interesting details and incorporate my own imaginative reflections into the mix. So what happens is often not a pure document but its own fiction. Yes, the project in the combinations of pictures, voice, thought and its use of imagination, pushes, large and small pieces into a fresh series of stories.

William Blake once wrote he could see the universe in a grain of sand. I come to view The Park as a book that never stops, a stream in a constant state of change of which the pages are one “catch” after another. To look closely at the book covers, and to listen to the voices from the benches offers a microcosmic mirror of a community with its multiple characters, including their loves, politics and dreams.

It’s a Pynchon book. What’s it about. It’s absurdity, the absurdity of everything. Many people read Gravity’s Rainbow. I have not. Where did you go to college. I went to Cornell. Isn’t that where Pynchon went to school? Yes. Isn't it up there in New York on the finger lakes? I used to visit a poetry publisher in Trumansberg.

Yes, the waterfalls out there are beautiful. Wasn’t Cornell a little spiffy? At times I was not spiffy enough. What do you do for work. I am a union organizer for grocery clerks. Were you here yesterday for the demo in the Park? No, we had an organizing meeting in Oakland. Can I ask your name? Athea. I never heard that name before. The Grateful Dead. It’s a love song. My parents were hippies.

My name is Seyd. I am from India.

I don't think I photograph well.

I write to try to figure out things.

“I've been in both jails and college. My name is Jeremiah.” Where did you go to college? “Morehouse.”

Did you know Ida Rousseau?

“What? You know Dr. Rousseau? She was my sociology professor. That’s amazing.”

We both went to Richmond High School across the Bay. She was straight A’s, the valedictorian at our graduation.

“I don’t believe this. That you would know Dr. Rousseau. Life is so random. She was tough on me. But real good.”

What are you reading? What is Valencia?

It’s a book about Lesbian life in San Francisco in the 1990’s. It was right here around the Park. Gay men were up the hill in the Castro.

What are your names??

I am Miranda. I am from Sweden. I am Sebastian from right here.

When did you meet?

September,
Can you move on. We want to keep reading.

It's in French and in Morocco. I have read him before. He writes about his youth. What did I study? Linguistics. What do I do? Project management. Do I like it? It's OK.

Off the bench reader among the palms and on the grass, the day warm again. Too far down the hill to call out to ask what could she be reading, part way through the thick paperback, firm and bent to her grip.

I have been writing journals since I was three years old. I am 16. I write about everything going on in my life. Yes, sometimes poetry. Which poets do I like? I like the poetry of Chekov and Szymborska. No, she is not Czech. She is Polish. I was born here. My family came from El Salvador. I have been privileged to always go to private schools. I go to Stuart Hall and I started at Children’s Day that red brick one just across the street from the park. My name? It’s Diego. Like the City. Yeah, it’s Spanish.

My name is Asher. In Hebrew it means happy. My Jewish parents wanted a happy child. I am a musician. The oud is my instrument. It’s Arab in origin. It becomes the lute in Northern Europe. I love Pynchon. I have read Gravity’s Rainbow and everything else. The writing is like mirrors of where we are as well as a prediction of where we will be. It is also very funny. Vinland. Yes, in Northern California it’s about or among ‘back to the landers.’ I want to go up there sometime to see what it is like.

It’s in Spanish. It is about the origins of language and writing in Mesopotamia. You mean hieroglyphs? Yes. You are so tall with such long arms. What do you? I dance in the San Francisco Ballet. Beautiful! I am from Spain. Is ballet still cruel among the dancers fighting for parts? No, that is an old history; things have changed. It is competitive, but no one is trying to break anyone’s ankles to become a lead. I love the work we do. Why are you reading this particular book with the papyrus plants on the cover. I am just curious by nature. It’s about words.

I work in the legal end of tech.

Does that mean you work with the titans, the big guys in the industry.

They might think they are big, but they are not that big.

This book, what is it, what is it about?

It’s an appreciation of the forms and varieties of love.

I am silenced. I ask no more questions. The expressions on her face, don’t they say everything? I didn't even look at the title!