Book Review: ‘A Fearless Eye: The Photography of Barbara Ramos’

Photos That Capture the Soul of San Francisco

Taken in the late 1960s and early 1970s, these long hidden photographs by Barbara Ramos have just been published in “A Fearless Eye.”

Barbara Ramos’s “Couple With Baby, 16th Street Bus Stop.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

Feb. 14, 2025

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Barbara Ramos’s black-and-white street photographs from the late 1960s and early 1970s, when she was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, are far from the fanfare of the Summer of Love. Instead, the art historian Sally Stein writes in A FEARLESS EYE: The Photography of Barbara Ramos (Chronicle, $35), they make for a “multifaceted chronicle” of a “society brewing with diversity” in which, improbably, “the center still held.”

A black-and-white photo of an older woman wearing an elegant collared coat leaning against a storefront on an urban sidewalk with a cigarette between her lips. — “Woman With Cigarette and Man With Briefcase, North Beach.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

A black-and-white photo of a man reclining on top of the hood of an old car, backgrounded by a field populated with several other people. — “Man Sleeping at Altamont.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

A black-and-white photo of a suited man standing with his back against a wall of white shoe boxes. — “Shoe Salesman.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

Born in New York City but raised in Los Angeles, Ramos documented the in-between moments of urban living, in images that fill the frame with small and mesmerizing details. A couple waiting for the bus on 16th Street, leaning against the wall that borders the grassy park; a man napping on the hood of his car at Altamont near a group of hippies; a salesman standing in front of a wall of shoe boxes; a daydreaming grandmother rocking a stroller in front of a store window in Chinatown. The clothes and hairstyles feel nostalgic but not saccharine, sideburns and cigarettes placing the images firmly in their era.

“I felt like I became the people I was photographing,” Ramos tells Steven A. Heller in one of the book’s introductory essays. “Every waking minute I was obsessed by looking, by exploring the world.”

A black-and-white photo of a woman wearing a polka-dot shirt and skirt resting her hand on a stroller, in which a young child gazes up at her while holding a bottle. They’re standing next to a man in front of a store window. — “Grandmother and Baby Girl, Chinatown.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

A black-and-white photo of a young boy wearing a pea coat and hat speaking to a salesman at a store counter. — “Boy and Salesman at Emporium Counter, Market Street.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

A black-and-white photo of several adults and two children gathered on a sidewalk, appearing to sing. The man in the front holds a drum strapped to his body. — “Hare Krishnas and Man in Leather, Market Street.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

Shortly after this series was taken, Ramos put away her camera and her images for 50 years to become a jewelry maker. In 2020, she unearthed negatives, scanned the images and posted them on Facebook, a single photo each day.

Published for the first time in “A Fearless Eye,” Ramos’s work captures minute and mesmerizing everyday scenes in a city that was about to change drastically.

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