The San Francisco photographer Fred Lyon has been chronicling the City by the Bay since the Depression era.

Through all of its changes, the city — with its fog, bridges, and steep roads — never lost the ability to entrance, he said.

“In San Francisco,” Lyon said, “you can point your camera in any direction and it makes you look good.”

Now 93, Lyon has published a new book called “San Francisco Noir” that includes 200 of his rich black-and-white images from the 1940s and ’50s. The scenes conjure a bygone period of fedoras, smoky jazz joints, and kids playing in the streets.

In its praise of the book, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “No photographer has better captured the allure of San Francisco in all its foggy, cinematic splendor than Lyon.”

Speaking by phone from his home in the city’s Cow Hollow neighborhood, Lyon explained his career as the result of a “series of miraculous accidents” that included being in the right place at the right time.

He made his mark during the golden age of magazine photography, doing assignments for clients like Vogue and Time Life. He never said no to work, he said. And in his spare time, he carried his camera into the city’s darkened streets to indulge his own curiosity.

Asked if he misses the old San Francisco, Lyon said, “Sure.”

He cited his nostalgia for the “dingy jazz clubs” that vanished. “Everybody misses the good parts of their past,” he said, “because memory has a nice way of eliminating the dumb parts.”

He added, “It isn’t the same city. But to be a vital city you have to keep evolving and that’s what San Francisco is doing. What it’s turned into is a place where people who are willing to take a chance are inventing new things. It’s wonderful.”

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