september - if it were cooler, i would be melancholy The Same Old Song

Is that the return of the politician? 

The contrast between the natural and the artificial is a great conveyor of meaning that supports our interpretation of the image . On the one hand the natural soft-colored texture of the aged wooden house, on the other hand the artificial brightly-colored celluloid texture of the poster that displays the politician's image. A meaningful opposition that is very well-seen. 

Jack, admirable composition with very good color -contrast and texture. That Zero over his head is symbolic.

Thanks for the comments on this one.

Laurent - You have put into words exactly what I wanted to convey with this picture. Almost 7 years ago I took my first serious picture, election posters pasted on this old warhorse of a house. And now I'm visitng that territory again. Here is that initial offering made with my old Olympus D-650 point and shoot.

Amal - thanks as always for your support. I'm afraid the more things change, the more they stay the same . (I believe there's a French saying to that effect, isn't there Laurent?)

Progress,progress, progress...! Cover and forget the past... ( my impression). Lots of room for interpretation. Fantastic, story telling capture. Compliments!

There´s something quite hard to pin down in the man´s expression.  His lips look stretched to tightly, like a rubber balloon pulled tight before you try to inflate it.  Perhaps this is his pre-grin warm-up and it turned out to be more sincere than the actual smile.  Nevertheless, the aged wood is quite a contrast to the plastic pink.

I always love candidate's expressions. They're trying to project that winning image: Serious; caring but not too soft; determined but not maniacally so; vaguely approachable but still a busy executive with no time to waste. As a result they come off as some terrifyingly souless hybrid that exists solely in  poitical meta-reality, the missing link between an actual human being and a Ken doll.

What an expression! It is as if he once met a sincere man and he is struggling to recollect what sincerity looks like. The spit and polish sheen of the poster and the well worn reality surrounding it can easily be spun off toward a host of relevant political dichotomies.

Something about the balance of elements in the frame leaves me feeling visually centered, making me want to view the rectangular elements of to the edges of the frame out of the corners of my eyes rather than directing my gaze their way.

I agree with what others have said above about the forced sincerity. But, I really wish I could read Japanese. I really want to know what the text on the right says. It's subtlety is calling to me, much more insistently than that bright pink.

I'm late to this party and made the misstake reading other comments...

The first time I viewed this photo it reminded me the old TV-series, The Saint, with Roger Moore. The contrast between this poster and the man vs the old wall is striking indeed. May this reflect the society with looong traditions vs the polished formal lifestyle. I have this impression the old rules are about losening up a bit nowadays, but still you could enlighten how the daily life between neighbours is running, outside the work I mean?

Dare I say this photo by it's visual merit was somehow too sugary, a given eyecandy, to awake deeper discussion. Fortunately other PN fellows managed that so I can only play this role of a Yes-man... ;-)

We have a very political group of artists here, Markku, so if there's a tail to be pulled you can rest assured there will be no shortage of hands to pull it. I've tugged a tail or two myself.  Things are changing in Japan as everwhere but I fear the ship has neither rudder nor chart and everywhere it goes around in circles heading nowhere.