Rachel Smith, the head mermaid at the Dive Bar on K Street in downtown Sacramento, prepares to enter the aquarium for a performance. 

Valarie Phillips sorts through clothing to be dry cleaned at Woodard-Ficetti Cleaners on J Street in Sacramento. She checks each garment, cleans the material under the arms and then handles any special spot-cleaning and scrubbing as dictated by a ticket attached to the clothing. Phillips, a Louisiana native, has worked at the cleaners for 22 years.

The instructors at iFly Sacramento, in Roseville, do a practice round, as the controller manages air flow. Fans at the top of a vertical wind tunnel draw air through the flight chamber and then push it back down through the sides, creating a column of air. These instructors pride themselves on being able to take anyone off the street and introduce them to the sport of bodyflight. 

Based on the enormity of this pressroom in Midtown, one wouldn’t think print newspapers are dying. The pressroom, a three-story labyrinth of rooms, stairwells and machinery, operates nearly 22 hours a day, printing five daily newspapers and six weekly publications.

Jeff Pettigrew prepares the inside padding of a casket at Pettigrew & Sons Casket Co., a family-run business in Sacramento founded by the late Fay Pettigrew, who is Jeff’s grandfather.

Dominik Jakubek, one of two goalkeepers for Sacramento Republic FC, makes a diving save on a shot during practice at Bonney Field. Jakubek joined the franchise as an original member in 2014. He was 34 years old when he was signed.

Billboards have been a staple of American advertising since the late 1800s. Originally, crews pasted several strips of posters together to create one large billboard. Now, they use vinyl engineered to withstand harsh weather. 

For most of her youth, Sequoia Criteser was petrified of fire. As a child, she would not have imagined starting a career as a fire dancer 13 years ago. 

Monk’s Cellar in downtown Roseville smells vaguely of an oatmeal breakfast. It’s actually a new batch of beer brewing, called Friar Funk, a Flemish red ale with wine-like characteristics. 

When a new client hears his barber’s name is Renee, he might envision an “old French dude” and not a young woman. The industry remains, after all, a field of men. “When I was in school, it was me and 60 dudes,” says Renee Green, 29.