Thanks! As is yours.
Was wondering how you do by yourself in the city with a camera? I worry about it quite a bit, especially when I have big lenses on because I know it puts a target on your back, especially when I am setting up on a tripod and dialing things in so there's little situational awareness.
I have started hosting a Meetup group with predetermined locations in the city because there's safety in numbers, so far it's off to a great start and we all learn a little something from each other.
That's a deep subject. So I'll ramble a little bit. Also my views have changed over the years in San Francisco - see below.
I'll speak to making photos of people, rather than getting your gear jacked. Gear jacking is a relatively new thing in SF, related to what I wrote in the last paragraph. Also... I haven't shot in SF in a couple of years due to the pandemic.
For the most part, for shooting candids (meaning unposed, rather than not trying to be seen by others) of people on the street, say in the downtown, is don't be sneaky with your camera. People on the street, especially those that kind of hang around a lot, are incredibly perceptive. People react to suspicious behavior - it makes no difference how big or small your camera/lens is - people respond to behavior that appears suspicious or threatening to them.
For example, taking hip shots, fiddling with your camera while sneaking a shot, looking one direction and taking a shoot in another direction, etc will often be noticed with a challenge. Followed by a "Hey, why'd you take my picture?" Then you have an issue to resolve. Best to not get in that situation to begin with. But if you do, be honest and have a good reason already worked out in your head. If you lie, which many can detect, then your hole just got a lot deeper. I usually say something like, it's for my blog (when I had one), or I'm documenting the City, can I make a couple portraits of you? Many people (perhaps feeling a bit flattered) will say yes, and then you can make a street portrait and get to know the person.
If you offer honesty, trust, and respect, you'll often get it back. Making street portraits of people from the start is different and I'll address that in another post.
What I'm getting to is I always raise the camera to my eye so people know exactly what I'm doing. And for me, that's usually with a 35mm (full frame equiv) or less. There's too much compression making street photos with a telephoto.
So...what I wrote above is what worked for me up until say five years ago. One of my cop friends (I've made a lot of street portraits of SFPD cops over the years) told me street dynamics are very different now with rampant addictions to meth and more recently fentanyl driving up crime up substantially in SF. My cop friend, who is also a photographer, said it would be a lot more difficult making photos today, than in the past. That could be true, I just haven't been up to SF to see that for myself.