Hal Fischer, A Salesman, 1979, from Hal Fischer:
Seminal Works (Aperture, 2025). Courtesy the artist
When Hal Fischer arrived in San Francisco in 1975, one thing immediately caught his attention. “There were people all over the streets hanging out in the middle of the day,” Fischer remembers, “I thought: don’t these people work?” At the time, living was cheap, rents were affordable, jobs paid well enough, and so people didn’t have to work full-time jobs. That, coupled with San Francisco’s year-round, temperate climate, meant that the city residents — many of them gay — had plenty of time to hang around. “It was special because it was a community,” says Fischer.
By 1976, it was estimated that one in five of San Francisco’s population was gay – spurred on by a great migration of queer people who’d moved to the city following ‘67s Summer of Love and ‘69s Stonewall Riots. “People were finding their voices and beginning to exercise political power,” said Fischer. The city’s liberal social scene soon began to bleed through to politics, too. In 1977, Harvey Milk became the first gay man to be elected in California. “I was at the camera store the night that Harvey Milk won,” Fischer recalls, “You did have the sense that you were in a period that was making history. But then again, isn’t every period making history?”
Now, 1970s San Francisco has become thoroughly embedded in the gay imaginary. For many, it feels like a Golden Age, one which cannot be replicated — though Fischer cautions against that label. “Golden Age is a term that is applied retrospectively. Did Rembrandt think he was living in a golden age? I don’t think so,” says Fischer. But through his photography, Fischer created a time capsule — one that has preserved and codified his experiences of living through that period, capturing what it meant to present as a gay man in a period defined by the beginnings of gay liberation. His career-spanning new book, ‘Seminal Works‘, was released earlier this month.
Front cover of Hal Fischer: Seminal Works
(Aperture, 2025). Courtesy the artist
Fischer’s most well-known work is his photo series ‘Gay Semiotics’, which sought to categorise the types of gay men that he saw all around him in San Francisco. For Fischer, the idea of codifying these archetypes came after he attended a salon run by the artist Lew Thomas. The group were reading Jack Burnham’s ‘The Structure of Art’, and the chapter about Claude Lévi-Strauss immediately caught Fischer’s attention. “He has two paragraphs talking about signifiers and what they are, and the light bulb just went off”. Having had his eureka moment, Fischer dived into capturing the series, and within six months it was complete. “I only write in my journal when I’m struggling and there was nothing about Gay Semiotics. Nothing,” Fischer exclaims.
The most recognisable of the photos in ‘Gay Semiotics’ feature gay men — some of the shots are full body, some feature only a close-up of a face or a midriff. Each of the photos is annotated with white lines that draw the eye to specific points of interest, which are labelled in plain text: satin gym shorts, earrings, silk scarf, leather jacket, cock ring. Alongside these specific notations is a more general categorisation, a box in which the gay man in the photo is warmly placed: jock, hippie, leather, uniform, basic gay.
Fischer’s annotations are immensely droll and unfailingly funny. In one photo, Fischer captures the butts of two men wearing jeans, who each have a handkerchief peeking out from one of their back pockets. Fischer uses this photo to detail the hanky code, a system which was used by gay men to communicate their interest in specific sexual activities. Under the system, the colour of a handkerchief denotes a specific activity, and the pocket it’s worn in denotes whether the wearer would prefer to top or bottom.
One of the men featured in the photo has a blue handkerchief in his left pocket – which Fischer explains in his annotation is a man seeking to be the active participant in anal sex, before clarifying: ‘The blue handkerchief is commonly used in the treatment of nasal congestion and in some cases holds no meaning in regard to sexual preferences.”
Hal Fischer, Gay Semiotics, 1977, from Hal
Fischer: Seminal Works (Aperture, 2025). Courtesy
the artist
Hal Fischer, Gay Semiotics, 1977, from Hal
Fischer: Seminal Works (Aperture, 2025). Courtesy
the artist
For Fischer, the punchlines weren’t hard to muster. “It’s Jewish humour, it’s self-deprecating. It just comes naturally,” he says. But the comedic relief also served a second purpose – it invited people into the art. Fischer believes that one of the biggest misconceptions about ‘Gay Semiotics’ is that he created it for gay men; in fact, Fischer hoped that the works would help anyone to understand gay culture. “I was celebrating it! I thought it was fun and I thought it was interesting,” says Fischer. “When I was putting my work together, I realized that everything in my life is about giving people access to things.”
Straight audiences immediately took to the series – but its reception by gay people was slightly more cautious. One of Fischer’s friends created a Xerox magazine in which he interviewed around 30 other gay men to get their take on the series – and many of them didn’t know what to do with it. “I mean, they were really kind of political, academic people – maybe they were lacking in a sense of humour – they just couldn’t figure it out,” says Fischer.
One of the critiques that was levied against the photo series was simple. “It’s not expansive enough,” states Fischer. All of the photos in the series feature white men who neatly fit into the category of the ‘Castro Clone’, a term coined for patrons of San Francisco’s gay district – The Castro. In doing so, though, the series contributes to the marginalisation of lesbians, men of colour, and anyone who falls outside of the prevailing image of gayness. This was compounded too by the project’s name, ‘Gay Semiotics’, which suggests much more of an anthropological tome than a personal history, which is how Fischer sees the project. “I think I was definitely celebrating my community. I don’t think I realized that I was celebrating my life – that awareness came much later.”
Hal Fischer, Gay Semiotics, 1977, from Hal
Fischer: Seminal Works (Aperture, 2025). Courtesy
the artist
The interplay between cultural portrait and personal history is particularly evident in Fischer’s later work. In his 1979 series ‘Boyfriends’, Fischer compiles photos of men that he’d slept with alongside his signature annotations. Like ‘Gay Semiotics’, ‘Boyfriends’ isn’t a straightforward personal history, but a series of photos that are curated and recontextualised with words, all to explore what Fischer’s personal ‘carnal interactions’ can illuminate about sex from that time. “Somebody could look at ‘Boyfriends’ and say he’s just putting in everybody who’s slept with. Well, if I was putting in everybody I’d slept with, we would have to add 100 pages,” Fischer laughs.
It wasn’t only San Francisco’s gay community that Fischer was chronicling though, it was also the city itself. In his 1978 series ‘18th near Castro St. x 24’, Fischer photographed a single bench in The Castro, capturing one image each hour over a twenty-four-hour stretch. As the day progresses, Fischer observes old men gathering for conversations, gay men who come to sunbathe, commuters waiting for buses, before the late-night drinkers emerge. “In retrospect, that’s a piece that I’m proud of, because it’s a really unique document. It’s got a comprehensiveness,” Fischer reflects.
Fischer’s unique mix of photography and annotation was able to capture a precise moment in San Francisco’s history – one that feels as alive in his photos as it must have been to have lived it. Though that period has passed, Fischer’s codifying techniques have still lived on. In 2024, Fischer was asked to contribute to a New York Times article on celebrity queer baiting – in which he annotated his signifiers onto press shots of celebrities.
Among the labels were lavender nail polish (for Harry Styles), multiple rings (for Timothée Chalamet), and vulnerable gaze (for Bad Bunny) – a term which feels more relevant than ever as Heated Rivalry has catalysed discussion around the term ‘bottom eyes’. With these photos, Fischer brought ‘Gay Semiotics’ to 21st century celebrity culture – but there’s a hard answer for anyone hoping that he’ll bring his eye to the gay man of today. “I wouldn’t do it! After everybody became metrosexual I had no idea who’s what,” he declares. “I mean, it’s so wonderfully topsy-turvy.”
Hal Fischer, Self-Portrait, State College, 1974,
from Hal Fischer: Seminal Works (Aperture, 2025).
Courtesy the artist
Learn more about Hal Fischer: Seminal Works at aperture.org.
words. Rob Corsini
