Man with empty shopping bag, Budapest.

Downtown Budapest, just off Margit Hid.

The man in my photograph is wondering perhaps
which store to enter,
which he needs most, a book or a bottle of wine.
He would probably love to buy both.
In the end he wanders away without buying anything,
his shopping bag stil empty
wrapped safely around his hand.

The man in my photograph is not that important to me
this afternoon. He fills the photograph
but I do not even get to see his face
or get a chance to judge the look in his eyes.
He fills this photograph.
He strolls into my life, pauses a moment or two, and strolls out again.

Seconds after I have taken the shot a second man emeges from the shop on the right, his suspicions aroused by my slouching around, camera in hand, on his pavement, his stretch of Budapest street.

A conversation develops first in Hungarian, then in broken German and English. Why you photograph? he manages to say but cannot continue. His German, like many Hungarians of his age, is decidely better than his English. Woher kommen Sie?

And I explain, smiling broadly in the hope we will hit it off. And we do. He shakes his head: Vor fünf Jahren viele Leute.... kommen, kaufen...jetzt keine kommen....and he shakes his head .... Nobody is buying anything, nobody, is the gist of what he is saying. I can't help noticing how well stocked his shop is though, and beautifully presented. Spotless. So it's hard to know how bad things really are for him. Two or three customers go in and out in my time there but times are hard in Budapest. Money is scarce. He tells me of his travels, Belgium, Dover, London, Spain, back when times were good, in the days when he seems to have made good money.

Eventually he has had enough, has checked me out, is satisfied I'm not from the secret service, the government or any dangerous local body or council, and it's time to get back to work. "Auf Wiedersehen" he chirps and departs, smiling contentedly to himself that he can now report to the woman in white who sent him out in the first place that all is well....

Later, a dark-haired young model in a black mini-skirt
will stroll into my afternoon and stroll out again ,
pausing, Iphone in hand, before following Google maps
round the corner past McDonalds
and off towards Pozsonyi út.
She has a shooting and it seems she has lost her way.

At the fountain where I sit for a rest a beggar comes for a drink of water.
Two old men in the company of an old woman sit in the sulight and chat.
The yellow tram to Széll Kálman Tér passes at intervals on its way across the Danube. The light, as always in October in Budapest, is lovely....