Green Graffiti

This is another bit of graffiti from the River Market, where I live in Kansas City.  This wall is across the street from my building, and the entire wall, which extends for about half a block, is covered in a huge mural of graffiti.  As opposed to the last piece of graffiti I posted, this graffiti is far more artistic in nature.  I took this photograph the afternoon that my new ultra-wide angle lens arrived.  It was a sunny day, and I felt the conditions were perfect to test my lens on this wall I had been waiting to photograph.

I’ve never been sure whether or not this mural was painted legally or not.  I am inclined to believe it was not painted at the request of the owner of the wall for a couple of reasons.  First of all, I witnessed this piece of art being created.  I was coming home late one Sunday night and the particular route I took home that night brought me past this wall.  I saw a couple of guys out on the sidewalk spray painting the wall, and although it was at night, they were not exactly covered by the darkness.  The street isn’t a main street for the area, but it gets a fair amount of local traffic.  These guys didn’t appear to care if anyone saw them, but then again, I wasn’t a police.  The next day I saw the extent of their work, and was blown away that they had spray painted the entire wall.

The second reason I would believe that the wall’s owner was not particularly amused at this piece of self-expression was that they eventually hung a large sign advertising their business, which is behind the wall.  Who do these jerks think they are?  Covering this possibly illegally painted piece of street art, just so they can advertise their business, which just happens to be located on the other side of that same wall?  Isn’t that what the yellow pages are for?

I’m getting off topic here, so going back to the photo; I really love this lens.  In post-processing I was able to get the colors to pop a little more than they did straight from the camera, and overall I like the results.

EAT EN

I finally got the ultra wide lens I've been wanting; the Canon 10-22mm.  It came last week, so I ran home over lunch to play with it and got a couple of pictures I really like; this being one of them.  I took this across the street from my apartment in an alley between an old brick building and a new modern building that houses an architectural firm that laid off a bunch of its employees last spring (how rude).

What does this say?  I don't know.  What does it mean?  I don't know that either.  What I do know is that I thought it looked cool; especially from this perspective.

I got to thinking about what it might say and I've got a couple of theories.  My first theory is that it says EAT EN, and that's assuming this is supposed to be English.  Perhaps the person who wrote this wanted to write 'EATEN' but ran out of room so had to extend his word to a second line.

My second theory is that it isn't English at all, but was intended to profess a favorable opinion of one's favorite fraternity and sorority.  Now I don't speak Greek, but it is my understanding that the letters EAT and EN or the symbols E-Triangle-T and E-N translate into Sigma Delta Tau and Sigma Nu.  This reminds me of my encounters with the EAT sorority while I was at the University of Kansas (which were limited to me simply observing them on campus).  This EAT sorority was most unfortunately named, as every girl I saw wearing an EAT shirt was of the overweight variety.  Hilariously unfortunate.

Any other ideas?