MonoMonday: "Portraits" - with something special

Isbi has been doing an excellent job of coordinating MonoMonday this month, with a different Blackheath blipper hosting each week which has been super. Today isbi herself is hosting.

She asked for a portrait with something special about it, so I grabbed this quick "street-portrait" shot as I walked through Jesmond Dene this morning. The main reason why it's special is that today (29th March) marks England's first tentative step out of Covid Lockdown #3 (whoopee!) following the wonderfully successful rollout of vaccinations. So from today onwards, we're allowed to meet out of doors (even in our gardens, not just in public spaces) in groups of up to six, or two households. So these 3 ladies had met for a coffee - probably their first meeting for many weeks.

Candid grab shots can, of course, be very cruel to the subjects and I was amused by the very different expressions on the two ladies whose faces we can see - one looking very jolly and the other...well not jolly! (I'm sure she laughed a moment later.)

I've given it a grungy look just to add another "special" effect. I actually used the "Classic Portrait - Hollywood Glamour" preset in Silverefex Pro 2...so you can see that I really did try to add glamour to the photo! And I don't often add a bright vignette to my photos but it seemed to suit this one, so I thought anyway.