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tobymarx
In 1968, at the age of eighteen, I moved from Ohio to San Francisco, where I enrolled at the Art Institute on Chestnut Street and studied painting and drawing for a couple of years, but I soon gravitated towards film-making. From 1971 to 1987 I worked as a recording engineer, sound designer, and composer (and occasional actor) for various film labs, studios, and independent film makers such as Curt McDowell, George Kuchar, and Larry Jordan. I had the great pleasure of writing a musical setting for "Fragments from the World of Henri LeCroix" by Pulitzer nominee Cyrus Cassells, and performing it with him at various venues in 1984. Between 1985 and 1995 I lost just about all that was dear to me—friends, family, business, home, and possessions—and for the next six years I plumbed the depths of experience and my own psyche, living on the mean streets of San Francisco as a homeless junkie. It damn near killed me and I was hospitalized for ten weeks. Looking death in the face made me realize the sweetness of just being alive, and from that moment I have never looked back. From early 2001 until October 2006 I lived in a Sixth Street hotel, where I began photographing and researching the history of San Francisco's central city. In 2007-8 I worked with architectural historian Michael Corbett on the survey that successfully nominated the San Francisco Tenderloin to the National Register of Historic Places. I am currently the photographer in residence at Intersection for the Arts.
