Anton Szandor LaVey San Francisco (1991)
Taken on the San Francisco waterfront in 1991, this striking portrait shows Anton LaVey standing against the cold industrial backdrop of the Embarcadero, with the Bay Bridge stretching across the darkness behind him. Dressed in black, his leather jacket, fisherman’s cap and severe expression give the photograph an unmistakably austere presence. The lights along the bridge and waterfront recede into the distance, while the black water and heavy structures surrounding him create a stark, almost cinematic setting. The image feels less like a posed publicity shot and more like a late-night document of LaVey in the city with which he was so closely associated.
The photograph was almost certainly made somewhere along the northern Embarcadero, likely around the Pier 7 or Broadway waterfront area, looking south toward the Bay Bridge. The timing gives the setting added historical interest. San Francisco’s waterfront was undergoing major change in 1991 as sections of the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway were being demolished and the shoreline was being reshaped. The photograph therefore captures two pieces of San Francisco history at once: LaVey, one of the city’s most notorious countercultural figures, and an Embarcadero in the middle of its own transformation. The image is believed to come from the period surrounding Lawrence Wright’s 1991 Rolling Stone profile of LaVey, photographed by Mary Ellen Mark, although the exact location and attribution of this particular frame have not yet been conclusively documented.
- photographed by Mary Ellen Mark
- photo colourised by Elias Thorne
