The photographer Arnold Genthe, who first arrived in San Francisco in 1895 and chronicled life in Chinatown, roamed the city to document the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and the ensuing fires. Because the equipment in his Sutter Street studio had been damaged, Genthe picked up a hand camera—likely a No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak—at George Kahn’s photo supply shop on Montgomery Street, close to the advancing flames. Kahn told Genthe, “Take anything you want. This place is going to burn up anyway.”