“To me, all the people I photographed were beautiful, similar to drawing a model in the classroom.”
– Barbara Ramos, photographing on the streets of San Francisco
Barbara Ramos moved from LA’s San Fernando Valley to San Francisco Bay Area in 1969 and began to photograph its landscape and characters. She developed “the habit of ‘looking’ all the time”.
She took an apartment on Sutter Street, near Polk in Lower Nob Hill.
As the city erupted with the Summer of Love and became a hub for Gay Liberation, Ramos noticed the tensions between youth tribes, progressive politics and native, more conservative San Franciscans.
Her pictures went largely untouched until 2020, when she and her husband began to digitise the archive. Looking at the photographs again for the first time in decades, Ramos senses the connection. “I felt like I was finally home.” she says.
Walking on Powell Street
“I always knew that I was an artist and was obsessed by the act of photographing my environment.”
– Barbara Ramos
Watching Television at Greyhound Bus Depot, San Francisco
“The camera was an extension of my body. I was quiet. I didn’t carry on with long conversations. It became somewhat of a dance for both of us.”
– Barbara Ramos
“To me, all the people I photographed were beautiful, similar to drawing a model in the classroom. I felt connected to everyone I photographed, as if we were all one. I think that was what I was trying to convey in my photography.”
– Barbara Ramos
“Every waking minute, I was obsessed by looking, by exploring the world. It was exciting to look at the negatives, which I developed myself, although I rarely proofed or printed. But my negatives from this body of work were literally hidden away in cardboard boxes for five decades. I became intensely involved in making a living in an art jewelry business; still visually creative, but in a more decorative and commercial form. It was the pandemic that forced me to confront my past.”
– Barbara Ramos (via)
On 16th Street San Francisco
All pictures Fearless Eye: The Photography of Barbara Ramos, published by Chronicle Books.
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