Journalism

Newspaper Photo Journalism

These photos are mostly published in the Potrero View, a monthly print newspaper serving the Dogpatch and Potrero Hill neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Turner Terrace Fire

Published in the Potrero View, Cover, December 2024

This fire happened in an abandoned building on Turner Terrace, which is where OJ Simpson grew up. It appears to be a fire potentially related to a meth lab. Firefighters dismantled the front door to gain entry to the building and put out the fire. I took this with a 100-400mm lens.3.

September 30th, 2024: A fire erupted in a boarded up building on Turner Terrace. Firefighters can be seen dismantling a boarded up door to gain entry into the offending unit.

Turner Terrace Fire II

Currently Unpublished

Three months later another fire broke out in Turner Terrace. This time with the incident happening during the day the photos turned out much clearer. In this photo a firefighter can be seen descending a latter from the roof of the abandoned building after the fire was put out.

December 29th, 2024: Another fire broke out in an abandoned building in Turner Terrace, Potrero Hill, San Francisco. It was the same building that was affected a couple months ago.

Potrero Hill Warehouse Fire

Currently Unpublished

December 15th: A warehouse at the corner of Minnesota and Mariposa caught fire in the early morning. Luckily firefighters found no occupants.

Waymo Blocks Fire Engine

Published in the Potrero View, Cover, October 2024

There was a house fire on dead end street in the neighborhood with multiple fire engines attending to it. This Waymo turned down the street and became confused and stopped in the road. A firefighter leaned inside the car at one point to speak with an operator.

September 2nd: A fire engine attempts to squeeze by as an autonomous Waymo blocks the route to a house fire near the end of Connecticut street.

Burglarized Reno Liquor Store

Published in the Potrero View, Cover, January 2025

This was an article and four photos published on the front page of the Potrero View. I conducted interviews with several commercial locations that were burglarized in November and December 2024, often photographing locations the day of the burglary, and included security footage captured from both commercial and residential property.

December 1st: The front windows of Reno have been replaced with wood after burglars drove a stolen car into it.

Waymo and Cruise

Published in the Potrero View, January 2024

This was a fun one to capture. I noticed during lunch that there was a parking lot full of recently suspended Cruise cars. I also noticed that Waymo cars often drove in the area. So I waited for a shot over lunch break. It took two days but I was able to capture a Waymo driving by the suspended Cruise cars. Sadly it's a little hard to make out the parked Cruise cars so the image isn't as powerful as it could have been. Fun fact, this was taken the day before Cruise suspended 900 employees.

An autonomous Waymo car drives by a lot of recently suspended Cruise cars in the northeast corner of Potrero Hill.

2023 APEC Bridge Closure

Published in the Potrero View, December 2023

While walking around the neighborhood I found that my usual route home was blocked. I asked the police officer what was up and he said the bridge was closed to prevent any protestors from doing anything weird on the overpass, since president Biden would be leaving the city via the highway. I was at the bottom of the bridge but wanted a better shot so I walked a mile around to get up to the top. Once there I took a photo taking care to get the bridge, officers, cars, and police tape.

SFPD shuts down the 20th street overpass Friday afternoon to deter potential protestors.

Potrero Hill History Night

Published in the Potrero View, December 2023

I saw a flyer for a history night at the local church and figured it would be a good opportunity to meet some of the neighbors. I brought my camera with me and grabbed some photos of the event. Potrero Hill Phil is a local celebrity of sorts, as well as a local historian, and here he can be seen conducting an interview with the former San Francisco mayor, Art Agnos.

Potrero Hill Phil, left, interviews former San Francisco mayor Art Agnos at the 24th annual Potrero Hill History Night.

Burned Homeless Encampment

Published in the Potrero View, February 2024

Potrero Hill has slowly been getting more homeless, despite mostly being a hard-to-climb hill and having minimal commerce. This was the largest encampment that I've seen in the neighborhood over the past year and after walking by it for a month I noticed it had burned down. There was also a trash truck there picking up some of the debris, but not everything, and the burned encampment has been rebuilt.

Charred pallets and a melted shopping cart remain from a several-week encampment that caught fire early morning January 18th.

San Francisco Tsunami Warning

Currently Unpublished

December 5th: Dozens gather atop Potrero Hill in wake of Tsunami warning.

Op Eds

These are opinion articles that I've written with the intent of being published with a newspaper.

The Photojournalist

Thomas Hunter II wearing a press jacket and carrying a big camera

Tags: #authoring

Thomas has contributed to dozens of enterprise Node.js services and has worked for a company dedicated to securing Node.js. He has spoken at several conferences on Node.js and JavaScript and is an O'Reilly published author.