I moved to the Mission District in 2015. That’s when I got into street photography. A spectrum of diverse cultures coalesce in the 16 or so blocks between Cesar Chavez and Market Street. It’s a place in flux. I felt the need to preserve it. On Sunday mornings, I would pick up a camera and walk the streets trying to capture the juxtaposition of old and new, rich and poor, local and foreign.

Church attendance has been declining across the US for decades but you wouldn’t know it walking through the Mission District on Sunday morning. The Mission takes its name from the Spanish Christian missionaries and it remains a fitting descriptor to this day. Diverse cultures gather as Catholics, Lutherans, Protestants and almost every denomination in between for Sunday worship. You’re never more than a few blocks walk from a church. Some are decades old, ornate cathedrals. Others are still being built. They exist in peaceful contrast with the urban bustle that surrounds them.