A Thinking Street Photography Site
This is one of those grungy images that jumped out at me. I was on a double-decker bus and he was on an adjacent seat, looking out. I like the urbane, dreamy and defiant attitude. Definitely a Wong Kar-wai Chungking Express moment for me. In fact, the bus went past Chungking Mansions moments before I pulled out my camera.
That Nikon signage was a serendipitous element so crucial to street photography.
I cannot help but be aware of my class consciousness even as I think on this image. He looks up, as if in hope, and the umbrella might shelter him from the harsh sunlight. Yet what has he to look forward to except a life among slightly decrepit buildings such as the one above him in the background? The tattoo of his left shoulder speaks of a defiance against a middle-class, executive presentation of the self. I can understand how such an image could be aestheticized, probably in a film by Wong Kar-wai.
Is this the only narrative I could conjure for him?
