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9 August 2016

We happened across this sign one morning when we were minding our own business. We weren't at all sure what it was about. But it's one of those rare questions to which we knew the answer. So we took a photo.

The Question. Two questions with one answer.

We took two photos, actually. One was a wide angle shot of the scene in general with the billboard in the middle. And the other was a zoomed-in close-up of the billboard.

We didn't like either one.

The close-up was too tight a crop, which made the awkward question a little too insistent.

And the distant shot was too distant, swallowing up the question in the busy industrial landscape. You could hardly notice it, as if it had been whispered by someone across the street who was not even talking to you.

So we cropped the distant shot. Twice, in fact, coming in a little closer the second time. At first we wanted all the No Parking signs on the right but then we thought a few would do. We liked the pedestrian, too, who was more prominent in the tighter crop.

You can just barely make out those details in this thumbnail but the print shows them prominently in the right-hand area of the image in which the world at large appears.

That wasn't the only work we did on this image.

The sign itself was in shadow and the rendering was too blue. It isn't a cold question, after all. It's an intimate one. One you would ask yourself.

So we selected just the sign and warmed it up. Neutralized it.

Finally we had framed the question the way it had been put to us on that sunny morning as we wandered around with our camera strapped to our wrist.

And the answer? You don't need a clue, do you?


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