After arriving in San Francisco, one of the first news stories he documented was the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike. His work on other stories was later published in popular contemporary newsmagazines such as "Time", "Look", and "The Saturday Evening Post". Some of his photographs of the Golden Gate International Exposition were published in "Life" in 1939. At the same time, he started teaching at San Francisco State College in 1936 and founded the photography department there in 1946.