SFBG What are your thoughts on the relationship between street art and art with gallery representation that has street art elements? In San Francisco in particular, that relationship is complex and has quite a history.
SR Great question, and you're right about the history. My involvement in the gallery world has been limited and so I don't really have strong feelings about the issue. It does seem like it's possible to create a healthy interaction between the two. Artists ought to be able to earn money for their art; that's what allows them to continue to do the art. Galleries can facilitate that. During the time I've been shooting graffiti and street art, I haven't encountered a commercial side to the scene that's seemed way over the top in terms of being exploitive or completely crass. Considering the degree to which graffiti and street art have infiltrated popular culture, and the potential pitfalls of that, the relationships between graffiti artists and galleries here seem relatively respectful and even mutually supportive.

SFBG What changes have you witnessed within Bay Area street art and graffiti over the past 5-10 years?
SR I've been documenting graffiti and street art around the Bay for almost six years. The biggest change has been the almost complete destruction of the once-vibrant graffiti scene in San Francisco. When I began shooting, graffiti was everywhere -- the city was seen as a kind of graffiti mecca by graffiti enthusiasts around the world. Things look so entirely different today that it's almost difficult to believe how much graffiti there used to be and how much more energy and creativity there was a short time ago. Rooftops throughout the Soma, the Haight, the Mission, Chinatown, the Tenderloin, downtown, and elsewhere were layered with a constant rotation of colorful pieces. Doors and walls all over the city were thoroughly tagged. Muni tunnels were covered in graffiti. The Dogpatch district all along Third Street had location after location of huge graffiti "galleries" (abandoned buildings, warehouses, etc.) crammed with super cool work. Graffiti covered parking lot walls, vacant lots and construction areas all over the city. And those are just a few examples. Today, all of that has been eliminated through a combination of development and a very aggressive, sustained anti-graffiti campaign launched by the Newsom administration. The public attitude about graffiti also seems to have become much less tolerant. It's a shame. A thriving arts subculture that flourished for decades is now on life support. Whether it will survive in any significant way is a real question.

SFBG Do you foresee any improvements or more trouble or both?
SR Hard to say. I'm hopeful but not necessarily optimistic. Until there's a new mayor, things almost certainly won't improve and we'll just have to wait to see how a new administration approaches the issue. Right now, except for photos of the past, young people have no particular reason to get excited about graffiti because they so rarely see any on the streets and the stuff they do see is often not all that good. Any revival will kind of have to be built from scratch.

SFBG What were the challenges of translating your photos to book form, and what, if any, is the ideal form and forum for them?
SR Well, I'm thrilled to have been able to make the books because I love seeing the photos in print. They feel more permanent, "real" and meaningful than online. That said, books do impose limitations on photos that don't exist on the web, especially space and size limits. We struggled with how to crop photos and how to fit all the material within the space restrictions. In December, I'll be exhibiting my graffiti and street art photos for the first time. It's a chance to go a lot bigger with the images and I think they'll have a different kind of impact. I'm not sure I've discovered an ideal forum. Each medium has its own rewards and drawbacks. It's fun to experiment with all of them.

SFBGHow would you sayBay Area Graffiti and San Francisco Street Art relate to one another, both in terms of differences and aspects in common?
SR Bay Area Graffiti is an extensive showcase of the graffiti of the Bay Area during a four year period through photos and interviews with graffiti writers. It's meant to be a fairly pure graffiti book. Graffiti, as I see it, mainly involves competitive creation of stylized letterforms through tags, throw-ups, pieces and productions. San Francisco Street Art highlights some of the best street art I found over the same four year period. Street art, as I see it, mainly involves stickers, murals, wheat-pastes, and stencils. It tends to be more message-driven and accessible. These two categories are related because they both involve illegal artistic expression, and there's definitely crossover between the two, but there are also important distinctions, so I feel lucky that I was able to highlight each in its own book.

SFBG What kinds of responses have you gotten from artists featured in the books?
SR The response has been great! People are excited to be included. There have been many books about graffiti and street art in New York and Los Angeles. The local artists I've heard from are happy that the Bay Area is finally represented. Local graffiti writers and street artists were incredibly supportive and enthusiastic throughout the process of putting the books together.

SFBG What are you looking forward to photographing in the coming days and years?
SR I plan to keep photographing graffiti and street art as much as possible. I love the art and I have a lot of fun looking for it and documenting it. With the books done, I'm also ready for some new challenges. Not sure what will catch my attention next, but I suspect something new and interesting will come along. It usually does.