Author Description

Street Signs: the comical and quizzical is a compendium of the street photography of Christopher and Lana Santoro. Lana's interest in photography began with a high school photography class and her first paying job at a camera store. Many years later, she's still taking pictures. Now joined by her husband, Lana and Chris enjoy traveling and capturing contemplative, humorous, and lighthearted moments, often incorporating environmental print, text, or signs and amusing, ironic, or profound symbolism.For those who love to travel, there's something freeing about the new places, cuisines, and sounds - whether it's sheep baaing from a remote pasture or traffic buzzing in a city. Photography had always been part of Lana & Chris's travels. At some point, however, they turned a corner and found themselves away from museums and bucket-list landmarks and with more and more time on the street. Or maybe the street found them?Either way, they began discovering the action of daily life, lived out loud, in cafés, on doorsteps, in markets, and on subways, street corners, and park benches. They became drawn to images that contain layers of meaning. Signs and text add a dimension of humor or abstractness to a subject that under other circumstances might have been silent. Signs are part of the street landscape. In an image, they can serve as guideposts, contrasts, or a humorous note, or even make you think twice about an initial interpretation. The added layer of literacy brings interesting complexities. Even the image names have layers of meaning. While some titles are directly descriptive, others have multiple meanings and, hopefully, provide (or cause?) a pause to think.