Expiration Is Creeping Up Behind

'Expiration Is Creeping Up Behind' this street denizen of San

Francisco. Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome.

(If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography.) Thanks! Enjoy! ;-) John

The Black and White version is different, and its deficiency is that it eliminates the 'red' of the 'expired' indicator from the parking meter.

Attached, as desaturated in Jasco Paint Shop Pro 9

John

I think I prefer the B & W version for its study of shades of lightness, grays and blacks, especially shades of black, over the 'story' of the redness of the 'expired' sign on the parking meter and showing this photo in color.

So, the B & W version may show up again somewhere.

John

In my quest for portraying subjects well, I often try to use symmetry and/or geometry.

In this case, it was to cut off the top of the parking meter a certain distance below the rounded top of the parking meter.

I notice, in this full-frame photograph, I also did the same with this man's hat -- cutting it off a certain distance from the top, a median of about the same length as the width of the parking meter bottom. Interesting.

It's that eye for symmetry born of a youthful interest in playing pool at my local university Student Union.

Although I was not much of a player, I learned a thing or two about complemetary angles, diagonals (all bank shots are initially diagonals, mirroring, and other mathematical elements that have a place in aesthetics, and are reflected in my personal aesthetics of photography (especially my better 'street' photography).

(And I got 'hustled' by 'ringers' occasionally from the local university, who wanted to cheat me out of my quarters by losing a few games to me before suggesting we 'play for a little pocket change' -- about all I ever had. I always politely declined, and watched those guys move onto the next table and clear the table from the intial break to sinking the last ball. (A life lesson learned at an early age -- about gullibility.)

So, any citizens of River City out there who are worried about their youths taking up that terrible game of P O O L (or billiards) might be well to understand that it teaches not only manual dexterity, but it nourishes the brain and even can teach common sense.

John [ ;-) ]