San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and largest in North America. While filming in San Francisco 🎬, I took advantage of the night and brought my Leica M6 film camera to capture this roll of Cinestill 800T film. This is the Chinatown I saw in movies when I was a child, so I photographed it to match my memories.
While strolling, I encountered a man in his 60s who went by the name Robert the tour guide. (If you ever visit, you're likely to meet him.) He's a Chinese man fluent in English and we chatted for over an hour. His aim was to introduce the highlights and history of Chinatown in exchange for some spare change, but unfortunately, I was broke that night. He was like a character straight out of Chinatown in movies like Rush Hour or John Wick.
Robert: 'I can’t tell you too many details about myself, there’s a satellite watching us above our heads. But I can teach you something.' He then carefully scrutinized me from head to toe and said, 'You are such a big Chinese guy! If you say this to the white girls, they would go home with you: "Hey! I’m Chinese, also a Mongolian! Before I buy a Mercedes, I always go for a test drive!" 😂 😂 😂'"
I bought 2 rolls of Kodak Portra 800 at this store, they definitely charged premium on those….
I like this scene because it feels like a scene from Marvel movie Venom
and there is a Leica store at the corner of the Chinatown, unfortunately it was closed when I was there…
