Photographer's Note
I took this picture of famous Painted Ladies many years ago from Alamo square in San Francisco. This was a diapositive picture then scanned...
Alamo Square is a residential neighborhood and park in San Francisco, California. Both are located in the Western Addition, a part of the city's fifth Supervisorial district, and are served by several Muni bus lines including the 5, 21, 22, and 24.
Alamo Square Park consists of four city blocks at the top of a hill overlooking much of San Francisco, with a number of large and architecturally distinctive mansions along the perimeter. It is bordered by Hayes Street to the south, Fulton Street to the north, Scott Street to the west, and Steiner Street to the east. The park includes a playground and a tennis court, and is frequented by neighbors, tourists, and dog owners. A row of Victorian houses facing the park on Steiner Street, known as the painted ladies, are often shown in the foreground of panoramic pictures of the city's downtown area. On a clear day, the Transamerica Pyramid building and the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge can be seen from the park’s center. San Francisco’s City Hall can be seen directly down Fulton Street.
A number of movies, television shows and commercials have been filmed in or around Alamo Square. The opening sequence of the American sitcom Full House (1987–1995) features a romp in Alamo Square Park with the famous row of Victorians in the background.
Painted Ladies is a term used for Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies - San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians.
About 48,000 houses in the Victorian and Edwardian styles were built in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915 (with the change from Victorian to Edwardian occurring on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901), and many were painted in bright colors. As one newspaper critic noted in 1885, "...red, yellow, chocolate, orange, everything that is loud is in fashion...if the upper stories are not of red or blue... they are painted up into uncouth panels of yellow and brown..
While many of the mansions of Nob Hill were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, thousands of the mass-produced, more modest houses survived in the western and southern neighborhoods of the city.During World War I and World War II, many of these houses were battleship gray with war-surplus Navy paint. Another sixteen thousand were demolished, and many others had the Victorian decor stripped off or covered with tarpaper, brick, stucco, or aluminum siding.
In 1963, San Francisco artist Butch Kardum began combining intense blues and greens on the exterior of his Italianate-style Victorian House. His house was criticized by some, but other neighbors began to copy the bright colors on their own houses. Kardum became a color designer, and he and other artists such as Tony Cataletich, Bob Buckter, and Jazon Wonders began to transform dozens of gray houses into Painted Ladies. By the 1970s, the colorist movement, as it was called, had changed entire streets and neighborhoods. This process continues to this day.
One of the best-known groups of "Painted Ladies" is the row of Victorian houses at 712–720 Steiner St., bordering Alamo Square park, in San Francisco. This block appears very frequently in media and mass-market photographs of the city and its tourist attractions. It is sometimes known as "Postcard Row." The houses were built between 1892 and 1896 by developer Matthew Kavanaugh, who lived next door in the 1892 mansion at 722 Steiner Street. These houses also appear in the opening credits of the television series Full House.
wojtpod, danos, bukitgolfb301 has marked this note useful
Critiques | Translate
bukitgolfb301
(53894) 2009-11-08 0:25
Hello my dear Ihsan
What is another great shot!
Well considered composition/framework and sharp focusing in the detail are excellent as usual!
B%W description is also excellent in this case too.
Congratulation on your masterpiece!
Thanks for sharing and best regards,
Have a nice Sunday evening !
Takero
danos
(110407) 2009-11-08 0:31
Good morning Ihsan,
nice snapshot of the stroll of the woman with her dog with this aristocratic neighbour of San Francisco.I like the existence of the background haze, as bring out the details of the houses.
Have a nice Sunday,Danos
diomed
(13926) 2009-11-09 3:52
Ciao caro Ihsan,
ancora un affascinante B&W con una scena nettamente divisa in 2 parti: un personaggio che passeggia tranquillo in un parco con il suo cane e, sullo sfondo, la bella prospettiva della case e poi, la città tentacolare con i suoi mostruosi palazzi. Sempre interessanti i tuoi reportage dal mondo.
Felice settimana
Antonio
salvator
(19110) 2009-12-23 2:34
Selam Ihsan,
Guzel netlik. Arkaplanda isikta siste kaybolmus gibi duran yuksek binalar, arkaplan, ve ondeki netlik, kontrast nefis duruyor.
Eline saglik. Selamlar, sevgiler.
Salvator.
Tukan-T5
(4317) 2010-11-10 11:03
Merhaba dear Ihsan,
great picture where the foreground goes couple -one person and the dog.
Then the strip of Victorian homes, and more modern skyscrapers.
This three-layer distribution and B / W hard stimulate the emotions and imagination.
Have a great evening Tomek
kiasari
(62) 2010-12-25 9:37
Hello Ihsan,
I believe that sometimes colors distract the mind from main message of a photo. I really black and white tones of this shot. Well done!
Have nice weekend,
Abbas
Photo Information
-
Copyright: ihsan mursaloglu (mursaloglu)
(8682)
- Genre: Places
- Medium: Black & White
- Date Taken: 1996-01-00
- Categories: Daily Life
- Photo Version: Original Version
- Date Submitted: 2009-11-07 4:23