The Monthly Edit - July 2026 — David Mullin | Street & Observational Photography

I’ve taken a picture of the Tower Bridge in Sacramento on an almost monthly basis for the past several years, but I think this one is my favorite so far. I think the boat crusing underneath completes the photograph. I prefer this quiet rendition than all the firework pictures commonly taken of this bridge.

The beginning of July took us down to San Francisco for the 4th of July to see fireworks launched off the Golden Gate Bridge for only the third time ever. Unfortunately, Karl the fog had other plans. After freezing our butts off for four hours sitting in Chrissy Field, the fog descended and pretty much obscured all the fireworks. Fortunately, we were staying nearby so didn’t have to drive anywhere. I have never seen a traffic jam in my life like the one that night in San Francisco. People are still talking about it.

Earlier on the 4th, we went for coffee in the Lower Haight and then strolled around the neighborhood afterward. I saw these two sitting on these wall benches. The person closest to me raised their hand just as I pressed the shutter.

Saturday mornings you can usually find me at the Mid-town Farmer’s Market in Sacramento. There’s a popular Meetup group that meets up every Saturday but I had never participated. This day I decided to give it a try. The walk was supposed to go from midtown to Old Sacramento but I had to cut it short due to some knee issues. I snapped this before we left the midtown area. I saw the woman alone on her phone surrounded by the bustle of the farmer’s market crowd.

Strolling among the various vendors of the farmer’s market, I spotted this young man who was drawing on a piece of wood. I checked out his wares and then asked him if it was alright to take his picture. He relented and this is the shot I ended up with.

On a separate Saturday, my wife accompanied me to the farmer’s market. Afterward, we stopped for some coffee at The Mill (some of the best coffee I’ve had). As we sat out front on the sidewalk, I noticed this mother and her daughter. I just observed at first before realizing I should snatch up my camera and take a picture. I made it just in time as the young woman was getting down off the brick wall.

After coffee at The Mill, we headed back to the car. I was close to the end of my roll of film so was looking for last minute compositions. Ironically, this is when I usually get my favorites of the entire roll. Sure enough, when I saw the light falling on this bench and snapped a photo, I knew I had scored another good one. And, sure enough, it’s my favorite from that roll.

I forced myself to go out and use my digital camera one day between shooting and developing all the black and white film of late. Even though it’s still a rangefinder, setting my digital camera on Aperture Priority mode was a big luxury after shooting fully manual with my M6. It’s also the reason I used my Canon EOS 3 camera a bunch as well. Sometimes I just need a break from dialing in every single aspect while out shooting. It’s amazing how many more photos I take digitally and how many fewer good shots I get than with a single roll of film.

My wife and I took a day trip up to Truckee, near Lake Tahoe one Saturday. This was one of those after the picture surprises. I didn’t really notice that the guy’s shirt matched the logo of the restaurant sign until after I scanned the photograph. It’s still not very apparent upon first glance. I think I will work on increasing the contrast in his shirt and perhaps doing a bit of a crop to make it more obvious.

After getting coffee at Dark Horse Coffee in Truckee, we strolled down to the river overpass and discovered people rafting down the river. I only had my 50mm lens on my Canon camera so I waited until this woman with her dog were almost directly below us to take the picture.

Sometimes, well, many times, when you go out shooting you have slow days. This was one such day. It’s not all bad, though, because it forces me to look in places I might normally not shoot. I saw the light hitting this gate with the nice shadows. Turned out to be one of my favorites of that roll. Perhaps I’m sensing a theme here with my preferred black and white photographs?

There’s occasional activity around the train station when I visit Old Sacramento but on this day, there were dozens of people waiting to board the train for a short ride. When I walked down the platform, the engineers were tidying up the train and getting it ready to take on passengers. I saw this conductor strolling down the aisle of an open air car and quickly zoomed in on his torso to get the picture.

I’m not going to lie, the 4th of July trip to San Francisco was a bit of a disappointment. Even more disappointing was screwing up the development of the pictures I took while down there. Such is the film life. But the rest of the month saw me take out my Canon EOS 3 for the first time in a couple of years and I have enjoyed shooting with it immensely. I’m definitely someone who likes variety and enjoy taking out different cameras to suit my particular mood. That being said, the Leica M6 (Classic) is still my go-to workhorse and enjoy using it the most. I’m also still loving shooting and developing black and white film. There will be more on that soon in a different post.

David

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The Monthly Edit - July 2026

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