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The street fair was organized by the people who run Theater Artaud. They were soliciting donations to help the theater continue running in the future. Times are tough for many businesses these days, not just the high-tech firms in the grasp of the economic downturn and the Silicon Valley bust.

The organizers did use a different technique for raising money, though. They announced to the crowd that for every donation they get, they’ll remove an article of clothing. Minutes later, they were naked on the stage! I was setting up the video camera to record the next performance, so I wasn’t… umm… able to catch the revealing removals. My eyes, however, recorded the event indelibly into my brain. Yes, we were definitely not in Mountain View anymore!

Rae and I recorded a number of performances Thursday evening, including a dance set by the Facing East Dance and Music group. Ben Tang performed this praying mantis set while a dancer and a saxophonist played on. Other performances included this woman twirling fire sticks, a vaudevillian skit between two women, some rappelling acrobats, and numerous dancers.

San Francisco houses a much different set of people than quaint old Mountain View. Street fairs like these tend to bring out the most intersting cast of characters from the City. The fair started at 6:00 pm, but I got there closer to 7:00 pm. The sun had already gone down, and the street lights providing illumination on the fair weren’t that strong (except on the stages). As a result, taking pictures of random people proved a little difficult. I’m sure that I have better coverage of the people on my videocamera than on my camera. I did see a guy with some flavor of a Nikon D1/D1x/D1h at the event. He had a big Speedlight attached to his camera, which probably afforded him a few better pictures. With my puny on-camera flash, I was better off hand holding at ungodly slow shutter speeds.

Around 9:00, Ben, Rae, and I went to a nearby restaurant to grab some food. Ben just got into photography and had brought his new Nikon n80 with a huge 70-210mm lens. It was neat to see someone just getting into photography. I remember when I bought the D30 just under a year ago. It was an exciting introduction into the world of creative photography. Point and shoots just don’t cut it most of the time. Digital made it easier to learn the ins and outs of creative photography however. I can’t see how I could have gained as much experience doing it the traditional film way.

There is one good thing about my Leica M2 camera. It doesn’t have any batteries. My D30 battery drained after only about 100 shots over the past day. It was disappointing to say the least. Whenever I run the camera with two batteries, I can shoot 400-500 shots, but when I only have one battery in the camera, the life is pitiful. I don’t know what I’m going to do on a super-extended trip without access to electricity. Guess I shouldn’t “be so proud of this technological” wizardry that I use, eh?