End of week and the long Memorial Day weekend lies in front of us.  I have been culling the various websites for photo enjoyable – something light ahead of the coming minivacation.  I found two photographs that I really like on the “NBC best of the week series.”

The first is a photo by Vadim Ghirda  for the AP showing an elderly woman, in cliché elderly woman garb, walking in front of a fashion billboard in the shopping district of Bucharest, Roumania.  The contrast is obvious, itself a cliché.  But it is always a thought provoking one.  What is in the woman’s thoughts?  She appears to be on a cell phone, but isn’t. What is? What was was? What might have been?

The second is an image of a busy rush hour street in Tokyo by Kimimas Mayama for the EPA.  Again this scene of motion where only the center figures approach being in focus is something that we have seen many times before.  Here it is masterfully executed and creates a true sense of both intense motion and the isolation in a crowd that defines modern urban centers.