Bob Dylan at the Warfield, November 1978, 79, 80

In November of 1978, 1979, and 1980, Bob Dylan took over the Warfield Theater in San Francisco for three 2-week runs of shows, mostly showcasing his gospel albums from the same time period. While I was not a fan of the artistic move on his part, it was a great opportunity to see him in a small venue (the Warfield is basically a very nice movie theater) where they allowed cameras and fairly unfettered access to move around. The Warfield was then, as it remains today, located in a seedy stretch of Market Street, so the walk to the venue and back again to my car was somewhat unpleasant. Once inside, however, the ambiance and acoustics were first-rate. I have very few specific memories of the concert and, since I didn't love the music, I was free to focus (no pun intended) on getting the best shots possible. No one bothered me, I was relatively discreet, and took about 270 photographs. Today, with digital, I would have taken many more. These days Dylan is obsessed with not allowing photographs at his shows. It seems remarkable to look back and see how free we were to photograph whatever we wanted. I have spent the past three weeks scanning and Photoshopping a large number of slides and negatives from those days and will be posting some of them in the next few weeks.I was using a Nikon FM 2 with a lens I cannot remember for these photographs.