He Ain't No David Bailey

Yesterday in a cafe in the city a young Anglo Indian family struggled to take a group photograph on the father's iPhone. He held the phone aloft as they squeezed together trying to fit into the frame. I watched them for a while and then offered to take the picture for them. I took the iPhone and knelt on the floor. They formed into a relaxed, smiling huddle as I squinted at the little plastic screen. I said, "One, Two, Three", and pressed the unresponsive button. I pressed it again. And again. Finally the images seemed to be taken and I handed the iPhone back. As I walked away the mother said, "What a nice man to do that for us". But as I took my seat across the room I realised that I had not brought my glasses out with me, and that the photographs had been taken by guess work. And, as I looked at the horrified, incredulous look on the father's face as he flipped through the 'images' I had 'composed', I could only imagine the carnage I had wrought. Unfortunately, they were too polite to take any more photographs while I was in the room, and so I had single-handedly snatched away their memories of an otherwise happy family outing with milkshakes and toasted sandwiches.

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