Nearly 14 million people on X saw a picture of San Francisco — with many (maybe millions) unclear if it’s real or not.
San Francisco is the most topographically varied major city in America. It’s estimated SF contains between 50 and 70 hills — the recognized number widely determined by how a “hill” is defined — with about 48 specifically named. (ICYWW: That’s why fellow independent media outlet 48 Hills is called “48 Hills”; it’s genius.)
Many of San Francisco’s streets sit on 25% gradients; Lombard Street snakes along a 27% gradient. However, more than a few of San Francisco’s steeper hills have roads and sidewalks that run in parallel with them, rather than latticed around them.
One such hill is Nob Hill, where Powell Street’s cable cars run North and South over some of San Francisoc’s steepest hills. The street, itself, experiences sharp climbs and dips, sitting in stark contrast to the usually flat urban roads in America … which rarely see gradients above 4%.
That difference came to blind, demoralizing, dystopian fashion when a picture taken on California Street went viral on X.
“Is this real,” X user Deku204 posted on the platform in regards to a picture shared by influencer and videographer Duke Dennis, perplexed by a picture of him taken during a recent trip to San Francisco.
Is that Photoshop or real? pic.twitter.com/Nrxr5l1eD4
— Deku204 (@Twweeee1) February 27, 2025
The picture shows Dennis in the middle of Powell Street’s cable car line. (For those who live in Nob Hill and Russian Hill, it’s an all too common sight: witnessing tourists take hurried pictures from atop the cable car routes.) Dennis is looking down Powell Street toward Market Street from inside the Powell and Pine streets intersection — a cautiously vertical roost, for sure.
The result? An image that defies gravity and could’ve been a still out of the 2010 blockbuster Inception.
But discerning eyes, die-hard locals, and pessimistic sleuths quickly pointed out the picture, which has been viewed almost 14 million times as of publishing, was doctored and stitched up in a way to exaggerate that grade. And they’re right: The picture was tinkered with, albeit expertly.
((Powell Street runs for only a few blocks before running into a perpendicular intersection with Market Street; the hazing around the shouldering trees and buildings is unseeable, once contrasted with the clarity and focus of structures perceivably mile [or miles] down the “road”; the framing of an unusually concrete skyline in Dennise’s photo isn’t possible from his vantage point, no matter his direction and goes on for far too long; there’s an evident stitch point that runs along the second-pictured intersection; the lighting grade, exposure qualities, warm tones are inconsistent before that perceived stitch point [that uses a far higher resolution and edited picture than the still that contains Dennis]; there are other more nuanced details that don’t line up, but we’ll let you, the reader, go about on a lil’ Where’s Waldo? pixel journey.)
So yes, internet: This trippy, mind-bending picture of SF is absolutely photoshopped (and stitched). But San Francisco’s topographical quirks still exist IRL … just ask anyone (read: me, myself, and I) who climbs these downtown hills daily.
Feature image: Courtesy of [at]dukedennis
That’s looking down California st, right above Stockton. The Ritz Carlton is on the right. The two lines coming out of the photographer’s head is where Market St is photoshopped in, and that’s the view from far above the ferry building, looking down Market towards the financial district.