Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Friday Slide Show: Along Dolores Street
24 May 2024
Dolores Street is the wide boulevard of four lanes with a generous median strip populated with palm trees that runs through the Mission to Market Street. We walked north along the west sidewalk one sunny afternoon. But it seems like it's always sunny on Dolores.
Which is amusing if not ironic because dolores is Spanish for "sorrows" or, if that's too quaint for you, "pain."
In the 18th century, a contingent from Spain made its way up the peninsula and along what is now Dolores Street, discovering a creek they named Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores. Our Lady of Sorrows Creek, in short.
The trickle of water must have looked like tears to them.
When they later had the bright idea to build a church, they named it Mission Dolores after Our Lady of Sorrows because, after all, it was near the creek.
Our photo souvenirs started with a lovely backlit rose.
The mission is one of the oldest buildings in the city, the other being the Presidio Officer's Club (to the extent it still exists). Between them was a three-mile horse trail that came to be called Lovers Lane. It carried the soldiers to their sweethearts.
Or so we're told. We didn't wander by until a couple of centuries later. But judging by the number of descendants, we suspect it's the truth.
Our photo souvenirs started with a lovely backlit rose. Then we came across an ice cream man waiting for the school kids to get out for the day. We saw a corner deli that seemed straight out of Disneyland's Main Street and then we put our head down to climb the hill in front of us.
On the other side we were delighted with compositions both in the distance and at our elbow.
We ended our trip at Dolores Park as our camera battery finally gave out for only the second time since we've had the camera (nearly 12 years now). We'd been shooting all day.
We waited for the J streetcar and transferred to the 48 at 24th Street to get back to the wind and fog on the other side of Twin Peaks. Home, shivering home.
The camera battery may have been exhausted but our warm and sunny hike had recharged our own batteries.
