Photographer Kristen Holden: Love Stories on Muni

Photographer, poet, and model Kristen Holden‘s pictures of Muni riders have caught our eye for a while. We found her on Flickr as “SFLoveStory” and tracked her down to find out what makes Muni such a great subject. Holden grew up in Chicago and has lived in San Francisco for almost seven years. She lives in Russian Hill with her musician boyfriend and their “talentless dog.”

What is it about Muni that inspires you to take photos there?

This simple answer is: I ride a lot and I shoot my surroundings more than I do anything else. But what makes Muni rife for photographic capture is that the exterior environment is always changing around the same structure or, like, bones of the scene. There are endless characters to make up stories about.

What’s it like taking pictures on Muni?

I think people generally assume I’m a tourist. Once in a while someone will ask me about my camera and why I shoot film (I’m currently shooting with a second-hand Canon EOS Elan II SLR with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens.)

Got a favorite Muni line?

I ride the 45 and 30 to get from Russian Hill, where I live, to downtown and vice versa. I take the 47 and 49 quite a bit. Oh, and I’m one of those weird people who actually rides the 19…it gets the closest to the film-processing center I go to in SoMa. I love the cable cars and streetcars too. The mint-green colored streetcar from Brooklyn (Car 1059?) is my favorite.

You can see more of Holden’s photographs on her website, Kristen-Holden.com.

Hella Hot Again at Muni Diaries Live


Photo by Flickr user Chipmonkey

More than 100 of you spent Friday night with us, doubling over laughing at BART driver Kelly Beardsley’s impersonation of a hapless German tourist and singing along to McPuzo and Trotsky’s 38 Geary song. For those of you who didn’t make it to the hot Make-Out Room that night (or couldn’t make it in due to capacity reasons – our apologies), let me give you a little taste of the ridiculously fun night.

Our favorite burlesque cheerleading squad, The Cock-Ts, kicked off our third spoken word party at the Make-Out Room with Muni cheers written especially for us. Their misguided counselor, Coach Chester, had a few faux-‘stache malfunctions, but that didn’t faze varsity cheerleaders EZ-Martini, Dizzy Disaster, and Lil Biscuit.


Photo by Flickr user Chipmonkey

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