The above photo is courtesy of San Francisco based photographers Laura Maish and Bill Storage (bstorage.com). Their work documents the exquisite beauty and fragility of that city by the bay. Like New Orleans, another unique metropolis at death’s door, San Francisco radiates life, culture , individuality and a sense of place. Knowing that a tremendous catastrophe may come at any time, the city of fog, hills, bridges and subtlety still has guts underneath its gentility.

I cannot think of the city without recalling Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and “The Birds”. Coiffed and manicured Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), who fought an attack by winged killers in an allegory of nature gone mad (“The Birds”) while dressed in green silk Shantung suit, is the perfect fictional representation of San Francisco.