This time, I went to Iceland with my dad. This is Hounslow Iceland. Possibly the world's wrst laid out shop. The aisles are narrow. the store is miniscule. The staff are zombies. Trying to get a picture where there isn't a bag of chips casually kicked under a freezer or a couple of policemen arresting a shoplifter is a feat in itself. Trying to get a photo of my subject in "stealth mode", when you have to stand two feet away from him, quickly is a challenge in itself.
But I gave it a go anyway.
Also, a funny story about that place. I was in Hounslow last year and was approached by a woman who asked me if I knew where Iceland was. I told her that she could probably get a flight from Heathrow. ha. ha. ha. What did you want? You're reading a blog about covertly photographing people shopping. You want funny? go find Bill Bailey on Twitter or something.
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Note the boxes and crap all over the floor. The whole shop is like this. And it all smells funny, too.
So, moving swiftly on.
POSE: Nothing terribly special about it, really. He's just picking up some biscuits. The only thing I like about it was the timing, I think. This was a challenging one to get as I had to stand so close, with my phone camera not being too fantastic at these shots.
I'm only giving this 3/10.
COMPOSITION: Terrible. The place looks like a bombsite. The product is blurry. The lighting is atrocious (He's not an albino, honest). The only redeeming feature is that I managed to get the picture almost exactly 50/50 split vertically, half shelves, half him.
This also gets 3/10. For a grand total of a woeful 6/20.
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Damn that trolley! I did like this strange effect where he's reaching into the freezer. The guy in the background is reaching into the freezer. The guy beyond him is reaching into the freezer. Almost like pointing a webcam at your monitor and playing with the perpetuality parallax... Or like some kind of choreographed dance routine.
The let downs being the trolley, bread trays and all the other crap. And again, the lighting.
So, POSE, I'm actually chuffed with it. I'm awarding myself a whopping 7/10.
I like his right arm holding the dreezer open. He means business. He's MARCHING into the freezer and TAKING that which is rightfully his: The prize: A Toad In The Hole. Yum.
COMPOSITION: Yeah, the recursive Shopper element. I really like that and I believe it's a first in the game. You can't set it up. I'm thinking the trolley in the foreground might not be such a woe afterall, as it mirrors the bread trays further down Sod it. I'm taking 8 points/10 for it. Probably WAY too generous, but if you knew how hard it is to get ANY decent photos in that hellhole, you'd want eight out of ten for it as well!
Totalling 15/20. Not bad at all.
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