Back in the early 70’s, I lived in California and worked as a freelance photographer. My home base was San Francisco and for several years I lived and worked on the top floor of an old singled Victorian in the Pacific Heights area. It was and still is a choice location with trendy boutiques, bars and restaurants up and down the block. The address was 1782 Union Street and this past summer when I visited the Bay Area for filming my documentary the building was still there.

One Saturday in 1973, August 25th to be exact, I decided to document the day by photographing those who walked past the studio. No agenda, no criteria, no sales pitch, just randomly asking folks if they would like to have a professional photo taken. During the course of that one day I approached total strangers and convinced them to climb two flights of stairs to my studio in order to snap a few black and white photos against a black paper background with my Hasselblad camera.

There was a young family with a stroller, friends heading to a local bar, a couple on vacation, a teacher from New York and a boy scout from Denmark…a wonderful cross section of humanity. I charged nothing for the session but did record names and addresses to send everyone a print as a thank you. The day was a great success with twenty separate portraits taken with a total of 39 individuals joining in my spontaneous experiment. Once completed and a few personal prints made my chronicle of the day was stashed away and forgotten.

A few years passed and I left California moved to Chicago, got married, raised a family and had an amazing 30+ year career at Playboy Magazine; and not until 2013 when I opened my current Highland Park photo studio did my long forgotten portfolio resurface. Looking back on that day and finding the list of names of those photographed, I became curious as to what had happened to everyone. How fascinating would it be to track them down and reconnect and even photograph them again after nearly half a century! I began my search in 2017 and over the past 9 years thanks to social media sleuthing, word of mouth and a bit of luck I’ve been able to account for 28 of the 39 photographed. Several have passed away but of those living there are artists and actors, lawyers, teachers and activists, each individual’s story a testament to the unique and extraordinary paths ordinary people can take.

For a week during the summer of 2025, I traveled to California and Ohio to visit, interview and photograph eight of the those I’ve been able to find and communicate with over the past several years. Their willingness to meet and allow me to photograph them again as well as to have a documentary film crew record this reunion evolved into adventure more rewarding and meaningful than any other experienced in my 60 year career. Their openness in sharing stories of their lives the good and the bad brought an unexpected level of personal reflection and candor to the interviews and the photographs.