17

Midnight. Summer. Washington Square Park. Date night.

I love this photograph. The body language between the couple up front is charming. You can see the man's careful efforts to charm his date, and you can see the woman's clear demand to be charmed. The photo also captures the high level of activity in the park. This small stretch of bench is full of three other groups of people each having moments just as intense as the courting couple. There is music in the warm air. People come and go in the background. Can you hear the chatter?

I don't have any time for debates about image quality. IQ does not a photograph make. The noise in this photo is no worse than the grain in the Kodak Tri-X film (ASA 400) that I used to 'push' to ISO 1600 to shoot under street lights and in arenas. Today's digital sensors are amazingly light sensitive by comparison. They suffer much less noise than the high speed films of yesteryear.

The sensor that took this photo, not so much. I was using a small 2007 point-and-shoot with a tiny 1/2.5" sensor. The digital processor and zoom lens in the camera were well reviewed but, hey, it was what it was. Still, I don't mind the 'grain' at all, and the photo rocks.

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