STOP School
Break time for the school bus driver on Dallas Road near Clover Point. I expect that school bus drivers are in desperate need of such breaks, at least on the bad days.
I can’t decide between the two pictures. The lighter one is more ‘real’, but the darker one has a feel that I like and which is totally missing from the other.
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Canon EOS 5Dmkii, Canon 50/1.4 lense, ISO100: f6.3, 1/60th
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burnt embers 
Yep, I’m with you: the darker one. More character somehow.
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Hi Ashley – thanks for that vote. Character is kind of hard to define in photography, except perhaps portraits and then I guess its the subject as much as the photo.
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I’m going to buck the trend and go with the second shot. I find the first one, for my eye, a little too heavy on the mid-tone greys. And I would even raise the contrast (in the second shot) to get some real rich blacks to contrast with the lighter colours of the bus. But then – that’s what I like personally in my B&W style – and it’s not to everyone’s taste.
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Thanks for the ideas Andy. I am going to try your prescription and see how it looks.
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I like the darker over the lighter, I also really like how you didn’t include the entire bus!
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Hi David. Including the rear of the bus would have made the driver disappear. And, since I was using a 50/1.4 prime I would have been stepping backwards over a dog walking area trying to get the framing right. I prefer to look down at my feet when traversing such ground. The practical constraints of shooting with primes have many faces (not hopefully no faeces).
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I have to say that (and maybe this is my previous career in the transit industry showing) the top one bothers me a little bit because school buses aren’t that dark. But once I get past THAT, I like that one better because it seems moodier and because it shows up the flaws in the bus’s paint more.
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Hi Melinda. We actually have some very dark “school” buses around here – they are the same or similar model, but are used by the military. They would look quite a lot like this in a colour photo. No STOP and no School on them though. But likely a bilingual escape hatch. And flawed paint. What I like about this is the driver. He was in a better pose, but moved just before I was ready to take the photo. But even so, he is telling a little story just by his choice in seating.
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I like them both and I agree; “STOP SCHOOL”!!!
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Thanks Ken. Many people would agree with the sentiment about school.
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