Yes, it's that time of the year again. Valentine's Day, a season of love, romance, and the hyperinflation of rose prices on a scale not seen since the last days of the Weimar Republic (except maybe in Zimbabwe). A time of year when a single man's thoughts turn to the woman that he was dating at this time last year, and the one that he got through dating a few weeks ago... which in turn reminds him of why it might be preferable to curl up in bed (alone) with a good book on quantum mechanics after watching some of Deke McClelland's Photoshop training videos instead.

That aside, this festival of fabricated feeling does lead to some shop displays which are both eye catching and, from a photographic viewpoint, not a little challenging. Indeed I think that a good and representative capture of this one is a little beyond my skill set at the moment (consider the dynamic range between the guy's singlet and the relative shadow of the dummy on the left), but it's given me some experimentation ideas for the future.
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Edit, August 2023: Honestly, I can't even remember who it was I was dating in February of 2009. If it's who I think it was, I probably don't WANT to remember. However that's not the worst omission here.

At the time I didn't take down any details of where this was. Did I even know about Eugène Atget at the time? Did I therefore understand how important it is to document time and place, which will one day change in a way that one never sees coming until the familiar old places are no more? No idea. But this is an example.

This store is located at 330 George Street, near Wynyard. It was, at the time, a Peter Alexander store. Not any more it's not. Peter Alexander not WAS, but rather IS a supplier of upmarket sleepwear, and this was one of their flagship stores. They're still around... just not here. They left sometime after 2015. It was after that that George Street underwent conversion from being a regular motor vehicle road to a road for trams and pedestrians only, plus the occasional supply and maintenance vehicle. The construction went on for years and the disruption to both traffic and pedestrian flow drove a wooden stake through the heart of a significant number of businesses.

Peter Alexander can still be found on George Street, but it's way down to the south toward Town Hall these days.

As of the time of writing an Italian bar (Bar Totti's) is there. No, I haven't tried it.

Yet.

Also... I hadn't noticed the red "Don't Walk" man (from the pedestrian crossing that was here when I took the shot) reflected on the hair of the right hand girl. Message, dating gods?