Why this book and why now?

The book has been a long term dream. Books have a staying power that other forms of presentation do not. Ever since I was a young man, I’ve dreamt of publishing something that could be passed along to future generations. As to why now . . . it was more a matter of patience, of it happening organically. I love shooting pictures, so my mind set was that there would be a time in my life that I’d engage with all the images I’d shot as a living organism.

When did you start taking pictures?

My childhood was full of Instamatic moments! We were a typical household of artists, photographing each other, and my interest in photography was carried forward from my mom; she had a roll camera to document her family. The torch was actually passed in more ways than one; a shared a sense of theatricality—my mom was a showgirl. She was part of the Norman’s Revue, one of the last burlesque troupes. She’d travel by train around the country performing. She was a beautiful showgirl and then she met my dad. The rest is herstory!

Tell me about starting to take photographs in San Francisco. . . .

It sort of coincides with my arrival on Castro Street as a young man of 19. I realized that timidity in the face of my own sexuality was not going to be useful; I wanted to be steeped in a community that was intent on making a better world for the LGBTQ community. I wanted to use whatever creativity I had to interface with a vibrant community that was exploding. And then Anita Bryant challenged us a year later, and that became a real call to action.

Your book chronicles an ever more tangible presence of the LGBTQ community in San Francisco over the decades. . . .

One thing that is very palpable to me, and I am glad I got to experience it, is the humble beginning of everything; meeting Harvey [Milk] and Scott [Smith] at Castro Camera. . . . A recognition of anything gay was hugely exciting because evidence of it was so scant. Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City came along and that raised visibility, and the explosion that came afterwards is the tell of history. When I look at my career, it was a very incestuous scene—community based slide shows, community based film shows. We wanted a wider audience, but were content with this little hotbed of community interface. Yet we always had an eye towards preserving our stories. We understood the power of storytelling.