SLO LIFE Magazine Jun/Jul 2019

| VIEW
&
RISE
SHINE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK NAKAMURA
Routine comes easily to Mark Nakamura.
After a long career as a kindergarten
teacher, thoughtful structure to a day
in the classroom was the only way
he could keep the tenuous balance.
Veering off course too much in any one direction
meant inviting chaos. And, chaos was most certainly
an unwanted guest.
Even in retirement, a commitment to routine remains,
and on most mornings, Nakamura can be found
peeling back the covers at four a.m. in his San Luis
Obispo bedroom. Depending on the weather, first light
generally means a hike up nearby Terrace Hill. But,
one recent morning, the routine was thrown off when
he overshot his natural wake-up time by a full hour.
He was not sure why it happened, but when he rubbed
the sleep from his eyes, the glowing lights on his clock
read five-something. It was just enough to shake up the
natural rhythm of things.
Instead, Nakamura headed toward the Mission. There
he found a still-slumbering Monterey Street without a
car in sight. Sensing a unique opportunity, he sized up
the scene in his Sony a7R III viewfinder and went to
work snapping away from different vantage points.
The composition you see here is actually three shots
combined into one, which is commonly called
“stitching” by photography pros. But that is where the
“high-techiness” ended for Nakamura, who says, “I
never really do much with Photoshop; I prefer to keep
things as they are.”
As they are. As they were. Those are the words that
perhaps capture the essence of San Luis Obispo’s
downtown streets more than any other—an idea as
much as a place, a place that inspires both a hope for the
future and a yearning for the past. SLO LIFE
34 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | JUN/JUL 2019