Urban Eden: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in 50 Photographs

December 6, 2025 to January 25, 2026.

Last Spring I built a 20 print preview of my Golden Gate Park Project, I have now printed and hung my intended expanded grouping, a 50 print version of the project and am proud to be opening it on Saturday December 6 from 2 to 5pm..

Urban Eden explores San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park combining Stephen Johnson’s new original photographs with his work made over the past 47 years.

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is 1017 acres of human transformed sand dunes and rocky hills made into an expansive urban park, offering refuge to one of the great cities of the world. The park is owned by the City of San Francisco and maintained by the San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks.

Considered un-plantable by early consultants, the engineering, dedication and vision brought to bear to create this park is impressive. It is an amazing history in and of itself.

Now celebrating 150 years of existence, the park is home to forests and lakes, a major science and art museum, a world-class arboretum and historic flower conservatory, sports fields, a Bison Sanctuary, complex water system and many miles of footpaths. It draws 24 million visitors a year, contains a great variety of trees and plants while supporting many animal populations.

The park was born in the 1870s of pride and recreational needs of a growing young city. Its creation was steeped in political aspirations and controversy and the park has endured those same dichotomies throughout its history. From issues of funding, intended audiences, commercial development and water needs. The park is a thoroughly human idea benefiting from nature’s fecundity, while battling back it’s natural state which was at odds with the goals of its engineers.

Golden Gate Park is a unique constructed landscape, designed to be a garden and refuge, making it a visually dynamic place. In many ways it mimics ideas of Eden in its sanctuary-like experience. Urban Eden is a photographic exploration of the beauty, diversity, and sheer power of will in planning and creating spaces.