A Date With Two Alfa Romeos
I'm not usually a morning person, but a few days ago I woke up at the crack of dawn, downed an espresso, grabbed my cameras, and hauled my way towards Ocean Beach. I was meeting with Steve from GTO Engineering to capture the morning with a couple of Alfa Romeos in San Francisco. When I got there, I was introduced to two beautiful examples of Alfa Romeo at its peak, a 1967 Duetto Spider and Giulia coupé, both in varying shades of a classic Italian red color. The Giulia was in pristine condition, an excellent example of the car and a tribute to classic Italian sports cars. The Duet, on the other hand, was a bit of a different story, as it had seen better days. San Francisco is a tough city to own a car in, let alone several cars, and because of this, the Duetto was parked outdoors for much of its adult lifetime. Despite this, it was indeed refreshing to see a car that was driven regularly and put to its uses, rather than one that was in immaculate condition but spent its life in a garage.
Right off the bat, we headed from Ocean Beach to the Cliff House near Land's End to snap a few photos coming down the bend and also in front of the iconic San Francisco restaurant. The weather was perfect, but unusual for this part of the city. Ocean Beach is usually drowning in fog in the mornings, so we were all surprised to see such a clear sky. The vibrant blues of the sky contrasted and complimented the reds on both cars exceptionally well, and result in a very bold rendering of the images taken there.
We then ventured east to capture the Alfas in a part of town that was representative of their original years — Haight-Ashbury, which during the 1960's was the place to be. Seeing as how the two cars were heading down to Monterey for the 50th anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival, the timing couldn't have been any better. Posted along the streetlights were banners from the Summer of Love which complimented the cars perfectly.
Last on our agenda was the legendary Grateful Dead House, for obvious reasons. We initially tried taking photos at the wrong house, but eventually, a hippy VW tour bus came by and put us on the right path. This was a solid ending to a fun morning.
As always, if you enjoy these photos, you can see more on my Instagram.
All shot with a Leica M 240 and Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5 Aspherical Lens.
