The streets of San Francisco in the 1940s and 60s in pictures by Fred Lyon

American photographer Fred Lyon is 94 years old and has devoted most of his life to photography. At the same time, he always remained loyal and devoted to his beloved city – the beautiful San Francisco. Here he spent his whole life, here his career as a reportage and advertising photographer developed, and here he took his bright and elegant street photographs. What started as a way to attract the attention of school girlfriends has grown into a life's work.

Lyon is a subtle professional with a strange artistic taste. He is an observer and creator, a psychologist and an aesthete – all this is visible in every monochrome frame. In Fred Lyon's San Francisco, you fall in love immediately and forever, because here is the drama, love, mystery and dynamics of one of the most interesting corners of America.

His career began in the 1940s of the 20th century and covers news, architectural, and advertising photography. In his 90s, Lyon was busy analyzing his own archival images for galleries, publishers and collectors. And he still worries when they call him and offer him a new project.

Lyon came to photography early, although not directly. A friend of the future photographer appeared at school with a real camera, which attracted a lot of girlish attention. Lyon was impressed.

When Lyon was 14, he left high school. After some time he worked for a local commercial photographer. Then he studied photography at an Art Center in Los Angeles. One of his mentors was Ansel Adams. This was followed by decades of fruitful work as a commercial and editorial photographer. Five presidents have been in his lens. Lyon has published his work in publications such as Time, LIFE and Vogue. But San Francisco, with its thick fog and steep hills, has always remained the photographer's muse.

The city and its inhabitants are the main theme of his work. The pictures of Lyon transport viewers into a universe of shades of gray, where car headlights and house windows glow almost mystically, vague silhouettes on the sidewalks and everything is shrouded in humid Pacific air. His street shots include bridges and sailors, fishermen and policemen, children playing in the streets, neon signs, jazz musicians.