{"id":481481,"date":"2026-02-21T07:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T07:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/481481\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T07:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T07:37:20","slug":"the-6-month-s-f-photography-class-thats-still-going-35-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/481481\/","title":{"rendered":"The 6-month S.F. photography class that\u2019s still going, 35 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Comic<\/a><\/p>\n

Read Mission Local often?<\/p>\n

Help grow our newsroom, joining the 3,250 readers who support us by giving below.<\/p>\n

Troy Don Adams has been a student at the 6th on 7th Photography Workshop for 14 years. <\/p>\n

Adams says he does not have any favorite photos in particular. He does not have any favorite photographers. He\u2019s here for the process of actually making the photographs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes it begins with one of the field trips organized by the workshop\u2019s artistic director, S. Ren\u00e9e Jones, which take students to places like Mare Island. Sometimes it begins with walking into the workshop\u2019s small gallery on Mission and Seventh streets in the South of Market, and asking Jones for a prompt. <\/p>\n

\"Mission<\/p>\n

Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

She keeps a deck of cards for just this purpose, with verbal prompts, like \u201cjuicy tomato\u201d or \u201cfresh strawberry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prompt isn\u2019t an assignment, just potential\u00a0inspiration to help you figure out what you want to do next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adams also comes here for Jones, who is a steady, non-judgmental presence in an unsteady neighborhood. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn that darkroom, Ren\u00e9e helped pull me out of a lot of stupid stuff I was in. It got me out of myself,\u201d Adams said. \u201cShe gave me something to express my creativity with, and it didn\u2019t involve getting high.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work of slow observation that photography brings, Jones said, is \u201csuch a luxury.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AS. Ren\u00e9e Jones is the art director at 6th on 7th Photography Workshop. She was previously a member of the workshop for over 20 years. Photo by Mariana Garcia.<\/p>\n

\"\"Polaroids and cameras decorate the entryway of the 6th on 7th Photography Workshop space. Photo by Mariana Garcia.<\/p>\n

A six-month experiment that\u2019s lasted more than three decades<\/p>\n

The workshop at 105 Seventh St. has quietly taught photography to low-income residents, veterans, and housing-insecure San Franciscans since 1991, when it was sponsored by Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (TODCO) to give residents of South of Market single-room occupancy hotels a creative outlet during building renovations. <\/p>\n

The workshop was only intended to last a few months. This year, it is preparing to mark its 35th anniversary.<\/p>\n

Jones discovered<\/a> the place in 1994, after a spinal condition left her unable to work and living out of her car. One day, as she wandered down Mission Street, she saw a flyer with directions to a free photography workshop. There, she met its founder, Tom Ferentz<\/a>, who took her under his wing.<\/p>\n

\"GrayThe exterior of the 6th on 7th Photography Workshop on Feb. 18, 2026. Photo by Mariana Garcia.<\/p>\n

Jones had studied photography 20 years earlier, as a student at San Francisco State University. Twenty years before that, as one of 10 kids growing up in the Mission District, she played with discarded cameras brought home by her handyman father as a way to \u201chide and pay attention at the same time.\u201d <\/p>\n

The experience shaped how Jones understood the world, and made her question who is framed as beautiful, and who is rendered invisible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Jones studied with Ferentz, she stayed on as a volunteer teacher, and moved into the Knox SRO<\/a> in SoMa. In 2021, TODCO president John Elberling offered Jones the opportunity to help Ferentz run the photography workshop, allowing Jones to return to paid work after more than two decades.<\/p>\n

But three weeks after she took the position, Ferentz was gone, taken quickly by cancer. She learned to run the workshop on the fly, writing her first grants while grieving her mentor.<\/p>\n

Now, Jones is the mentor. She\u2019s always available by text or phone to work out ideas for photographs, Adams said. He credits her with teaching him new ways of looking at the world, and for making him feel accepted. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am welcome there any time,\u201d said Adams, of the workshop. \u201cI haven\u2019t experienced that in other places.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ThreeFramed photos hang on the walls at the 6th on 7th Photography Workshop. The workshop is designed to provide a therapeutic outlet for adults in San Francisco living below the poverty line and military veterans. Photo by Mariana Garcia.<\/p>\n

\"\"The 6th on 7th Photography Workshop features vintage cameras decorating the interior. Photo by Mariana Garcia.<\/p>\n

A classroom and an archive<\/p>\n

Last Monday, on a rainy afternoon, Jones learned that one of her longtime students had died. She had just spoken with his sister, she said, her eyes glazed with tears, and apologized for her lack of composure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just get so close to people that you end up like family,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among that family: Robert \u201cNappy Chin\u201d Farrell,<\/a> known as the mayor of Sixth Street, who studied photography under Jones for 21 years, and who told her that when he felt tempted to buy drugs, he would buy a roll of film instead. <\/p>\n

There was a man with short-term memory loss who had to rely on his long-term memory to express himself through photography. He would apologize each time he forgot a lesson, Jones recalled. <\/p>\n

There was also the man who walked into the workshop carrying the only photograph he had of his late sister \u2014 her driver\u2019s license \u2014 and asked if the studio could help him make a copy so he wouldn\u2019t lose her image.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the tech boom of the early 2000s displaced the original workshop from its spot on Sixth Street, the studio opened a darkroom at SOMArts<\/a>. It now operates out of the ground floor of the Hotel Isabel, which is owned by TODCO.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, the photography is all digital, a shift driven not by trend but by access. Participants with limited vision or mobility found the manual cameras and darkroom process too much of a challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jones has also helped to adapt the workshop to the realities of housing instability. Many participants living in shelters and SROs lost their negatives. Jones began keeping careful archives of students\u2019 film, and later, digital files decades ago, so that even if a person loses all of their belongings, their work will remain. <\/p>\n

Jones said she\u2019s had people come back over a decade later, and that they\u2019ve been overjoyed to find their photographs preserved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 own work<\/a> is rooted in a style she calls \u201cconscious photography\u201d \u2014 images that reflect emotional or social realities. She works in black and white, and has captured street scenes and people across the city, including in its Black communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2010, Jones and Ferentz curated<\/a> an exhibition called \u201cPositively Sixth Street,\u201d which captured the much-maligned Sixth Street corridor through the eyes of people who lived there. Now, as the workshop marks 35 years, Jones is curating an anniversary exhibition celebrating the city\u2019s documentation by its students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When people wander in to see the latest exhibits, said Jones, they often don\u2019t realize that the other people hanging out in the workshop are the same people who took the photos. They don\u2019t always fit people\u2019s assumptions of who an artist can be.<\/p>\n

Self-promotion is rare. Workshop members often don\u2019t interact with the public, or even each other. \u201cWe keep to ourselves,\u201d said Adams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The workshop\u2019s main draw for artists is not accolades, said Jones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are something consistent in their life,\u201d she said, \u201cAnd we are always here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opening reception for \u201cPicture This! 5 years of Community Voice Through Photography\u201d takes place Saturday, Feb. 21, from noon to 4 p.m. at 105 Seventh St.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Join the 3,250 readers who keep Mission Local free for all!<\/p>\n

Because of you, Mission Local reached and surpassed our $300,000 year-end fundraising goal. All we can say is thank you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thank you for choosing to invest in a local newsroom rooted in San Francisco\u2019s communities \u2014 one that listens first and reports deeply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t yet had a chance to give, it\u2019s not too late to be part of this community. Your contribution today helps sustain the reporting our city relies on all year long.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re grateful you\u2019re here \u2014 and we\u2019d be honored to have you join our donors.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read Mission Local often? Help grow our newsroom, joining the 3,250 readers who support us by giving below.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,1075,229,88,688,222020],"class_list":["post-481481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-community","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-photography","tag-south-of-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}