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Steve Rotman
The Bay Area Graffiti Documentarian
"The Bay Area has a tradition of embracing difference and diversity and that’s reflected in the graffiti culture." Steve Rotman
Around five years ago one Steve Rotman began to photograph the murals
he was noticing around him and before he knew it this casual interest
in documenting a sub-culture, of which he had had no real knowledge
prior, had blown into a fully fledged obsession taking up his every
waking moment.
What was the catalyst in 2004 that led to you photographing graffiti?
What happened was that I got on a mural kick. Especially in the Mission District of San Francisco, we’re lucky to have this very impressive collection of public murals and I was really getting into them. Just for fun in early 2004, I was photographing as many as I could find. I enjoyed the challenge of making quality images of the art. Well, gradually I began to notice the murals created by graffiti writers—large “productions" all over the city. The vivid colors, wild letterforms and crazy characters blew me away and I began to shoot more and more photos of these incredible graffiti murals. When I showed my shots to a friend, he suggested I check out the classic graffiti documentary Style Wars to get a feel for the graffiti culture. I watched it and got hooked! By the end of 2004, I was obsessively photographing graffiti almost every day.
How did you support yourself during those periods when you were photographing 7 days a week?
In early 2004, I lost a job that I’d had for many years as a radio announcer. At around the same time, I got so into photographing graffiti that it was all I wanted to do. I ended up fully devoting myself to it and I somewhat recklessly lived off my savings for a few years to make that happen. Ultimately, I used up a huge chunk of my savings. Now I need to replenish my savings.
Did you notice similarities in the personalities of writers that had the same focus with their graffiti (i.e. guys that just bombed or dudes that were more interested in technical works, etc.)?
It’s tough to generalize. I mainly discovered that writers are pretty much as diverse as the general population. What they have in common is a passion for graffiti and art. I did find that there was an obsessive quality to the writers who were the most up. For them, graffiti was all-consuming. They tended to think about or do graffiti almost all the time.
Do you think you would ever undertake a similar project in another city?
I’d love to. I haven’t shot much graffiti outside the Bay Area. San Francisco’s really cracked down on graffiti the past couple years—the buff is intense. It’s tough to find walls layered with graffiti anymore. I miss that kind of graffiti intensity. It would be great to find a city where the scene’s flourishing. I get really energized when I’m photographing in that sort of environment—kid in a candy store type of feeling. Thing is, to really understand a city’s scene takes serious time and effort. As an outsider, it takes a while to learn the spots and the players. Anybody can drop into a city for a few weeks and shoot some nice graffiti pictures, but that will never really do the city justice. So, yes, I’d love to do another project like this in another city, but to do it right, I’d want to be there for a fair amount of time and I’d need to fund that. My dwindling and meager savings won’t do the trick anymore!
What sort of camera and other equipment did you use? Did you ever have more than one camera on you at any one time?
I keep things simple. I shot almost every photo in the book with a Canon Digital Rebel 300D. I use two lenses: Canon’s L series 17-40 zoom, and Canon’s EF 28-135 zoom. I use a Bogen tripod. I also own a Canon 30D, but almost never use it. I almost always have just one camera with me.
Jenks in his foreword mentions there is an openness of style in the Bay. Do you agree? Do you think this is something unique to the Bay Area?
I definitely agree with Jenks. There’s a lot of variety here. Writers aren’t afraid to experiment, to get playful or quirky. CHUBS, PANDA SEX and ORFN are a few examples. It’s part of what I love about this scene. The Bay Area has a tradition of embracing difference and diversity and that’s reflected in the graffiti culture. I can’t say for sure if this is unique to the Bay since I haven’t observed the scenes up close in other cities. But my general sense is that there is a healthy extra dose of creativity and plain old weirdness here.
Was there a particular writers/graffiti spot that blew you away when you found it? What kind of missions did you go on to find new locations?
My first couple years of graffiti shooting, I was part of a group of about six nerdy photographers who got together weekends for brunch and graffiti hunting! We’d all bring ideas about where to go. Sometimes we had good tips, other times we had to search for spots based on rough clues. We had some crazy adventures and found a lot of cool spots. We mostly explored abandoned factories and warehouses, tunnels, track sides, those kinds of places. So I’ve seen a lot of amazing spots, but I guess the most impressive (and the one that I miss most) was a certain San Francisco train tunnel that’s part of the local subway transit system. It’s nearly a mile long and used to be covered end to end, top to bottom in graffiti. It was stunning—a graffiti wonderland full of classic old pieces mixed with a rotation of new work. There was just so much graffiti and art in there. And it was a wild environment because you had to constantly dodge trains whizzing by. The city suddenly buffed the whole thing a few years ago, which really sucks.
With thousands of photos to work through, where did you start?
The book was like a massive jigsaw puzzle that took a couple years to fully piece together. There were certain photos I knew I wanted to use because they were my favorites. The rest was a slow process of sorting, editing and cutting. I started by going through my entire collection of well over twenty thousand photos and selecting images I thought were possibly worthy. I pulled maybe three or four thousand for that first cut. We ultimately used about eight hundred of those. The hardest thing overall, I found, was deciding what to cut. There are so many more photos I wanted to include, but of course we had limited space. We played around with the layout and selection of images up to the very last minute.
Were all the writers you came across open to your presence, especially in the earlier days when you weren't really known?
By far, most writers I meet are friendly, open and helpful. Understandably, some writers were skeptical in the beginning. I’m in my forties and no doubt I seem sort of “square” at first, so some writers suspected I was a cop early on. Some writers don’t want outsiders involved in their world. A few writers didn’t fully decide I was legit until they actually saw the book, and then they were pleased. I guess when I’m out shooting graffiti, I always keep in mind that I’m a guest and I try to treat the environment and the hosts well. As writers saw that I was a truly a fan and admirer and just wanted to document their graffiti in the best way possible, most of the major players encouraged me. A lot of these guys are my friends now.
When did the opportunity to turn your collection of photos into a book come about and what's next for you?
After I’d been shooting graffiti for a few years, a lot of writers urged me to make a book and I thought it was a great idea. Weirdly, nobody had ever done a photo book strictly devoted to the graffiti of the Bay Area or San Francisco. That seemed like a serious omission to me and I knew I had enough photos to make it work so I decided to go for it. I reached out to a number of publishers and I’m very grateful that Mark Batty ultimately agreed to put out Bay Area Graffiti.
I just released a second book, San Francisco Street Art (published by Prestel). It’s a collection of stencils, wheat-pastes, stickers, murals and graffiti from all over San Francisco. It’s the newest in Prestel’s series of street art books from around the world.
I’ve discovered over the last few years how much I love the experience of daily photography and I want to find a way to continue to do that. People have urged me to put together a gallery show of large prints, and I think it’s a cool idea. I’d love to do more books. I easily have enough material right now to do a Bay Area Graffiti 2. We’ll see what happens, but I’m pretty sure that one way or another, I’ll continue to take photos of graffiti.
Any shout outs or final words?
Much respect and admiration to the writers whose work I continue to enjoy and photograph. I’m so grateful they’re out there. Also thanks to my book collaborator and friend, Chris Brennan. And finally, thanks to you for this terrific interview! I really appreciate your interest and the great questions.
What you've seen here is only a tiny portion of Steve Rotman's work documenting the Bay Area scene. His Flickr is where you'll see his vast collection of imagery and where he is always updating to keep both his friends and fans up to date on his exploits.
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What happened was that I got on a mural kick. Especially in the Mission District of San Francisco, we’re lucky to have this very impressive collection of public murals and I was really getting into them. Just for fun in early 2004, I was photographing as many as I could find. I enjoyed the challenge of making quality images of the art. Well, gradually I began to notice the murals created by graffiti writers—large “productions" all over the city. The vivid colors, wild letterforms and crazy characters blew me away and I began to shoot more and more photos of these incredible graffiti murals. When I showed my shots to a friend, he suggested I check out the classic graffiti documentary Style Wars to get a feel for the graffiti culture. I watched it and got hooked! By the end of 2004, I was obsessively photographing graffiti almost every day.
How did you support yourself during those periods when you were photographing 7 days a week?
In early 2004, I lost a job that I’d had for many years as a radio announcer. At around the same time, I got so into photographing graffiti that it was all I wanted to do. I ended up fully devoting myself to it and I somewhat recklessly lived off my savings for a few years to make that happen. Ultimately, I used up a huge chunk of my savings. Now I need to replenish my savings.
Did you notice similarities in the personalities of writers that had the same focus with their graffiti (i.e. guys that just bombed or dudes that were more interested in technical works, etc.)?
It’s tough to generalize. I mainly discovered that writers are pretty much as diverse as the general population. What they have in common is a passion for graffiti and art. I did find that there was an obsessive quality to the writers who were the most up. For them, graffiti was all-consuming. They tended to think about or do graffiti almost all the time.
Do you think you would ever undertake a similar project in another city?
I’d love to. I haven’t shot much graffiti outside the Bay Area. San Francisco’s really cracked down on graffiti the past couple years—the buff is intense. It’s tough to find walls layered with graffiti anymore. I miss that kind of graffiti intensity. It would be great to find a city where the scene’s flourishing. I get really energized when I’m photographing in that sort of environment—kid in a candy store type of feeling. Thing is, to really understand a city’s scene takes serious time and effort. As an outsider, it takes a while to learn the spots and the players. Anybody can drop into a city for a few weeks and shoot some nice graffiti pictures, but that will never really do the city justice. So, yes, I’d love to do another project like this in another city, but to do it right, I’d want to be there for a fair amount of time and I’d need to fund that. My dwindling and meager savings won’t do the trick anymore!
What sort of camera and other equipment did you use? Did you ever have more than one camera on you at any one time?
I keep things simple. I shot almost every photo in the book with a Canon Digital Rebel 300D. I use two lenses: Canon’s L series 17-40 zoom, and Canon’s EF 28-135 zoom. I use a Bogen tripod. I also own a Canon 30D, but almost never use it. I almost always have just one camera with me.
Jenks in his foreword mentions there is an openness of style in the Bay. Do you agree? Do you think this is something unique to the Bay Area?
I definitely agree with Jenks. There’s a lot of variety here. Writers aren’t afraid to experiment, to get playful or quirky. CHUBS, PANDA SEX and ORFN are a few examples. It’s part of what I love about this scene. The Bay Area has a tradition of embracing difference and diversity and that’s reflected in the graffiti culture. I can’t say for sure if this is unique to the Bay since I haven’t observed the scenes up close in other cities. But my general sense is that there is a healthy extra dose of creativity and plain old weirdness here.
Was there a particular writers/graffiti spot that blew you away when you found it? What kind of missions did you go on to find new locations?
My first couple years of graffiti shooting, I was part of a group of about six nerdy photographers who got together weekends for brunch and graffiti hunting! We’d all bring ideas about where to go. Sometimes we had good tips, other times we had to search for spots based on rough clues. We had some crazy adventures and found a lot of cool spots. We mostly explored abandoned factories and warehouses, tunnels, track sides, those kinds of places. So I’ve seen a lot of amazing spots, but I guess the most impressive (and the one that I miss most) was a certain San Francisco train tunnel that’s part of the local subway transit system. It’s nearly a mile long and used to be covered end to end, top to bottom in graffiti. It was stunning—a graffiti wonderland full of classic old pieces mixed with a rotation of new work. There was just so much graffiti and art in there. And it was a wild environment because you had to constantly dodge trains whizzing by. The city suddenly buffed the whole thing a few years ago, which really sucks.
With thousands of photos to work through, where did you start?
The book was like a massive jigsaw puzzle that took a couple years to fully piece together. There were certain photos I knew I wanted to use because they were my favorites. The rest was a slow process of sorting, editing and cutting. I started by going through my entire collection of well over twenty thousand photos and selecting images I thought were possibly worthy. I pulled maybe three or four thousand for that first cut. We ultimately used about eight hundred of those. The hardest thing overall, I found, was deciding what to cut. There are so many more photos I wanted to include, but of course we had limited space. We played around with the layout and selection of images up to the very last minute.
Were all the writers you came across open to your presence, especially in the earlier days when you weren't really known?
By far, most writers I meet are friendly, open and helpful. Understandably, some writers were skeptical in the beginning. I’m in my forties and no doubt I seem sort of “square” at first, so some writers suspected I was a cop early on. Some writers don’t want outsiders involved in their world. A few writers didn’t fully decide I was legit until they actually saw the book, and then they were pleased. I guess when I’m out shooting graffiti, I always keep in mind that I’m a guest and I try to treat the environment and the hosts well. As writers saw that I was a truly a fan and admirer and just wanted to document their graffiti in the best way possible, most of the major players encouraged me. A lot of these guys are my friends now.
When did the opportunity to turn your collection of photos into a book come about and what's next for you?
After I’d been shooting graffiti for a few years, a lot of writers urged me to make a book and I thought it was a great idea. Weirdly, nobody had ever done a photo book strictly devoted to the graffiti of the Bay Area or San Francisco. That seemed like a serious omission to me and I knew I had enough photos to make it work so I decided to go for it. I reached out to a number of publishers and I’m very grateful that Mark Batty ultimately agreed to put out Bay Area Graffiti.
I just released a second book, San Francisco Street Art (published by Prestel). It’s a collection of stencils, wheat-pastes, stickers, murals and graffiti from all over San Francisco. It’s the newest in Prestel’s series of street art books from around the world.
I’ve discovered over the last few years how much I love the experience of daily photography and I want to find a way to continue to do that. People have urged me to put together a gallery show of large prints, and I think it’s a cool idea. I’d love to do more books. I easily have enough material right now to do a Bay Area Graffiti 2. We’ll see what happens, but I’m pretty sure that one way or another, I’ll continue to take photos of graffiti.
Any shout outs or final words?
Much respect and admiration to the writers whose work I continue to enjoy and photograph. I’m so grateful they’re out there. Also thanks to my book collaborator and friend, Chris Brennan. And finally, thanks to you for this terrific interview! I really appreciate your interest and the great questions.
What you've seen here is only a tiny portion of Steve Rotman's work documenting the Bay Area scene. His Flickr is where you'll see his vast collection of imagery and where he is always updating to keep both his friends and fans up to date on his exploits.
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