To The Pub - A Young Couple In Love

Yes, they were a young couple. The "In Love" bit I inferred, perhaps incorrectly, going by their body language. I shot this on the bus home from town a couple of hours ago. I had meant to do some street photography (a burgeoning passion of mine), but had a bit of a rotten day were everything takes 3 times as long as planned, so I only got a couple of shots, and only one of the two was even vaguely decent. Then I had to do stuff indoors (more on this in a second...)

Then, I got on the bus home and this scene was presented to me. Gifted to me, in fact. And I screwed up the shot. I think I had the aperture right, but should have pushed the ISO to 400 for a sharper shot. The beauty of it, for me, beyond the great expressions on the couple's faces and general body language, was the fact that the wheelchair dude on the boy's t-shirt is saying "To the pub" while the sign on the bus is indicating these seats are prioritised for people who are disabled. Neither of which came out as clear as I'd wanted. If blown up to print size (so the writing is clearly visible) I don't think it would cut it. Oh well, you live and learn (if anyone thinks this could have been achieved with different settings, please do let me know - it was a 35mm prim f/1.8 lens, btw, if that helps...gives me a 52.5mm focal length on my cam).

Right, the "other stuff"....heh heh. I spent some good hours looking at some excellent street photography books, all thanks to a dear friend and photog expert, in town. I shall be returning, to examine more book more closely, ask lots of questions about them and about photography in general, and to (get this!) check some serious quality prints by Bruce Gilden, Martin Parr, and various other street photographers of note. I'm overjoyed! Between the paper resources and my dear friend's knowledge, feedback, and comments, I feel like I'm on a photography degree course, only without the fees, late mornings, drunken nights, or hassle of exams. Okay, so I still get the late mornings and drunken nights from my jazz expeditions. But how utterly cool is that, eh? I'm becoming a pupil of photography. Woo hoo.

Also, literally after shooting this pic, I checked my phone (I'd switched it off while book browsing and chatting) to find that mobilevirgin had left a note on my flickr page to tell me that the local newspaper are going to print another of my shots (and another of my street candid shot, no less! never thought they'd print something like that, to be totally honest about it) next week in their Reader's Photos section. Double woo hoo. With a whiskey chaser. Okay, no whiskey chaser, but a cup of tea and a cherry on top (on top of the woo hoo, not the tea - I don't think cherries float).

So, the shot is okay but could be better. But my day has been bloody awesome despite the sketchy start to it. :-)