Pandemonia: Images and Text
  • Home
  • About
  • Photography
    • Overview
    • Featured Images
    • Now And Then
    • Galleries
    • Photo Essays
    • Photolalia
  • Video
  • Blog
  • FAQ
  • Other
    • HamishReid.com
    • Hamish Reid Photography Facebook Page
    • Flying
    • Old Pandemonia
    • California Driving: A Survival Guide
  • Contact
Previous Post
Next Post
Dec 11
in Featured Images, Urban 0 comments tags: Oakland

Featured Image: Castro Street, Oakland, 2007

Castro Street, Oakland (2007).

Castro Street, Oakland (2007).

I’ve commuted to San Francisco for years now on BART. Back in the mid-2000’s, as you went over West Oakland on the elevated BART way, you could see this ramshackle old apartment building just off to the left at street level in a mostly commercial and industrial neighbourhood. Over the years it got progressively more decrepit until it looked like it must have been condemned; but these things are hard to tell from BART. I kept mentally making a note to go and photograph the place, and every now and then I’d actually ride or drive past it on my way through West Oakland, but the sun was always in the wrong place or the light was bad or (as always seems to happen in West Oakland) there’d be a huge container truck or something similar parked idling right in front of it.

Finally I went out on my bike one Sunday morning and managed to get it (more-or-less) right. I think the resulting image does a reasonable job of conveying the isolation of the building, the lack of people on the street (this wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood where most people take casual strolls), the bizarre angles and textures on the walls and roof; the dereliction. It was definitely one of my fave old Oakland buildings — until it got renovated about a year after I took this shot. That renovation will definitely be one of my Now and Then series postings sometime soon, but in the meantime, the image brings back what I most remember about the place: the way it was always boarded up (in different places over time), with a furtive transient population of rats and crackheads that you sort of couldn’t miss if you looked in the right places at the right time.

Share this:
1582
0
About the Author: Hamish Reid
Hamish Reid is a photographer and videographer living in the Jingletown district of Oakland, California. He is Hamish Reid Photography on Facebook.


Leave a Comment! Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Highlighted Pages
  • Featured Images
  • Gallery: Boring Airport Photos
  • Gallery: Desert Junk (This Land Is Your Land)
  • Gallery: Emeryville in the 1980’s and 1990’s
  • Gallery: The Occupation
  • Gallery: The Wildlife Of Jingletown
  • Now and Then: Photos of Urban Change
Recent Posts
  • Featured Image: Trona, CA
  • Featured Image: Sunset, Lancaster and East 7th, Fruitvale
  • Featured Image: Big Country
  • Featured Image: Union Pacific
  • Featured Image: Siberia, California
Copyright © 2015 Hamish Reid. All Rights Reserved.