Photographer David Johnson, who chronicled San Francisco's Black culture, dies at 97
Johnson studied with Ansel Adams in the 1940s and became known as one of the foremost photographers of San Francisco's Black urban culture.
David Johnson generally wasn't interested in people posing for his camera.
As the photographer and civil rights activist put it in a 2017 interview at the University of California, Berkeley: "A big smiling photograph? That wasn't my style."
Johnson died at his home in Greenbrae, north of San Francisco, earlier this month. According to his stepdaughter, he was suffering from advanced dementia and had pneumonia. He was 97 years old.
Johnson was the first Black student of the famous nature and became known as one
