Middle Class Crisis

Pardon my absence, I've been training my eye with some film photography since Estonia.

The master academic responsibilities avoider that I am, I've been going to the beach pretty much everyday of late. Perusing the sands of East in a haze of shameful denial, while my bag of library books knock against my thigh, never letting me forget what I should be doing.

Pretty much everyday, then, I've seen these two fishermen, sprucing up their boats in time for the season (?) - I have no idea what I'm taking about. And each day, I've almost gone up to request a photo, and each day my nerves got me, I'd just regretfully walk by to go ponce around on the beach.

I don't know why I always get nervous when asking fishermen for photos in St Andrews, maybe my own insecurities about being some smarmy student thrusting cameras into people's faces. I am legitimately interested in fishing, the sea and the way of life people make from it. But somehow telling someone that before you ask for a photo seems stupid, poncey and entirely inconsequential for them. Some kind of Monty Halls character who does shows about disappearing cultures for a few days and then buggers off.

So, I just asked for the photo. Mumbling as I knelt down to compose the shot that I've been down the pier most of the last few days but had been too nervous to ask. They must have thought I was such a ponce.