Posted on

Powell and Market Street Cable Car Turnaround

Powell and Market Street Cable Car Turnaround
Powell and Market Street Cable Car turnaround in San Francisco photographed Straight Up by Cameron R Neilson

I desperately wanted to photograph the streetcars in San Francisco Straight Up. Obviously this is impossible, they move too fast, are dangerous, and unless I could get to the end of a line with special permissions, etc., figured it impossible. Turns out there is an end of a line in downtown San Francisco at Powell and Market Street. Here the trolley car is disengaged from the cable pushed onto a turnabout platform, rotated, reattached and sent the other direction. I couldn’t get the car–being too far away–but just like not being able to photograph all of a particular structure, the open space defined by the surrounding buildings, objects (in this case lamp posts), imply the narrative.