Stills

I'm off to St. David's Saturday for a week! :-)
 

Colin - I suppose the simple answer is that I didn't have time to move in order, say, to make the notices in the window more legible. One could say that places become more alike but that is not really a way out! Hints of UK - bus stop, the lack of hustle and bustle and the clothes she is wearing, although the latter might apply to most European countries. Boarded up shop fronts also point to an ex-industrial Welsh town. But you're right: slightly more universal than necessarily Welsh but, to a small extent, that is the point.

No - no Newport project unfortunately. There is enough there to keep one clicking non-stop for a year!
 

Thinking a little bit more about the description that I wrote underneath the photo makes me realise how much of it is, to a large extent, hindsight, even if I can recall thinking at the time that there was a small element of recording the changing face of Britain. The main reason is more likely to have been that I like to photograph people, irrespective of their location.
 

A long time (30 years!!) ago I admired the work of a lady in my camera club very much. I recall asking her how she managed to take such fantastic pictures, they were almost all of people in very moving situations and her timing and observation were superb. She didn't take long to answer my question she said 'I don't know, and I don't want to know'. For me the message in that reply was that you should relax and enjoy your photography. As said in a well know movie...let the force be with you.

I probably wouldn't have taken this picture because I don't know how fast cilantro eaters run/chase.

I like it is a useless comment but I do.
 

I find very interesting the paradox that this is a scene as common as it gets and yet, I keep coming back to it. Maybe it tells us we don't look enough at what we are so used to see.

As an aside, I find the background slightly distracting and would burn it a bit. Or quite a bit :-)
 

Once again I find myself in the position of outsider, not familiar with this place or scene. Not a common scene for me! In this case, my unfamiliarity may actually make it even more interesting. The scarf stands out, and the sidewalk area is much different from what I am used to seeing on the street. I like the shoes!

It does have a documentary feeling. The sunlit corner does not distract me from the main area of interest.
 

That looks like good cilantro, nice big leaves and not yet wilted. Having lived almost my entire life in university towns, things like cilantro and headscarves seem commonplace, but outside of Korea or a famer's market I'd be hardpressed to recall the last time I saw vegetables for sale on the sidewalk.

If Rex's "I like it" is useless, then mine probably will be to. As a slice of life sort of photo, it works well.
 

Given the narrowness of the streets and severe lack of raised pavement in Tokyo, you will often be forced in the roads whilst avoiding shop front produce. Anything from fruit and vegetables to toilet paper to bicycles can hamper your progress...

The street is derserted, just a couple of boxes out front on display, and a thoughtful gaze of the subject contemplating her next purchase. Combined these make for a pleasing image.

Back to that pavement, it's so empty and this works well with the apparent closed nature of some of the stores it winds its way in front of. The bus shelter(?) towards the back offers a little intrusion to my unbroken journey but not enough to warrant its cropping out.

Though you cannot see clearly the eyes of the subject to instinctively know where they are looking and the decisions they are returning to her mind.

There is also a great range of light with that pavement offering a route to the sunny end of the street?
 

Thanks for comments.

Stéphane - maybe the scene is not as common as it looks: for some people, like the photographer in this case!

Matt - glad that you appreciate cilantro! It's big in Latin America.

One thing that has always frustrated me about photography is the lack of dynamic range that prevents shooting inside to out or, like here, outside to in (although the piles of boxes and loo paper made any further look inside pointless in this case) without two different exposures. I like different planes (like photographing at the surface of water, looking both above and below. The composition here was decided instinctively at short notice but, almost certainly, I would have wanted to look up the street and into the shop.
 

I forgot to mention that the West Wales and Hampshire chapters of Stills successfully met chez JE on Sunday. I say successfully, because Rex and Nora managed to locate our house using GPS. After more than two years commenting on each other's pictures, it was good to meet up. They were here on one of the wetter and windier days of an already extremely damp winter - day one of their holidays, which, according to the forecast for the week ahead will carry on being wet! Welcome to Wales!