Dinner at the new Central Mall, after which she who must be obeyed indicates her intention to go stationery shopping. From bitter experience I know this will involve at least an hour trailing round stocks of coloured pens while she makes her selection. I dislike this activity because I have no interest in coloured pens, and because some of the stationery aisles have a smell (erasers and wooden rulers) which take me back to my schooldays, enough to make me shudder.
So I leave her to it and head off to the books section to browse titles I have no intention of buying. Then I discover a small book of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, with this image on the cover:
I look at this simple photo, perfectly composed, somehow portraying menace and offering as many stories as you could invent around it; and I realise (not for the first time) that there is a large gap between the stuff I snap, and the artistry of people like Cartier-Bresson.
The book contains 60+ of his photos, but it is shrink wrapped so I can’t look inside. But 695 baht later it is mine and I take it home to wonder at how this man managed to be at the right place at the right time to capture slices of real life.
I give up, anybody want to buy a camera?