Downcast

I met Michael today. Walking to the health centre, I crouched down to take a photo of the footpath and some poles (woohoo...). As I straightened up, a man walked up, and stopped to talk. Unusually, I had time, and - also unusually - I stayed to talk. Most unusually, I asked him towards the end of his tales (or at least those with which I was regaled) if he'd mind me taking his photo. He didn't, so I did.

His tales were interesting. Possibly tall. But then again, who knows? Some folks do have a lot happen in their lives. As he told it, his second apprenticeship was at the Opera House when it first opened; he won "the world bronze medal for table service"; he had his "arse pinched by Rudolph Nureyev", and he "face-planted between Joan Sutherland's breasts, before she was a dame"; he met all of Australia's prime ministers, and "there isn't a telegraph pole big enough to give Malcolm Fraser a spine"; he's had a broken back - "had a gear-stick through" him.

I took a few shots, encouraging him to keep talking as I did so. This is my favourite, taken just as he stopped - I think after I'd indicated I would have to hie me to work. For all the world he seemed a gregarious, even jovial, bloke; certainly rather happy. Here though, I think I've captured something else, in a fleeting moment before he raised his eyes again. That gives it something for me.

Large is better.

Flickr is more bettr.

Soligor 1:2.8/35 on Pentax K-30. The shutter speed and ISO suggest to me that this was f/5.6, but the bokeh up-top fairly screams 2.8; no ninja-stars to be seen anywhere. ;)