Swept Away

I can’t even guess what prompted me to take the Featured Image on July 22, 2017 in the Gaslamp Quarter during San Diego Comic-Con. The evening marked one of my first forays street shooting with Leica Q, which I had owned for only about six weeks. Vitals, aperture and shutter speed manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, 28mm; 6:05 p.m. PDT.

The broom and rake joined other cleaning gear in an untended cart. Surely the attendant was close by, although I don’t recall seeing him or her. The 99-percent crop draws out the big blurry menacing man in the background. Reason for the posture is unknown.

Whoa, where does time go? Twenty-seventeen was the last time that I attended SDCC and then with a purloined pass for one day. Four years passed before the next opportunity, when I was fortunate enough to be selected to purchase a pass for Comic-Con Special Edition, which started on Black Friday 2021. But SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 mandates required either vaccination or negative test, and I was unable to get either in time. I couldn’t go.

Will my SDCC 2022 dreams be swept away by circumstance or bad luck? We shall see.