Baker

14.

I was desperate to get a photograph of an Iranian woman for this slot, seeing as my collection so far is quite testosterone based.

I fancied something with lots of contrast and settled upon the idea of targeting someone wearing a chador peering into a window of golden jewellery. So I hung around one of the Shirazi bazaars, waiting for my opportunity.

One element I hadn't taken into account, though, was the amount of people that would be watching me trying to achieve this goal. If you stand still for more than ten seconds here you're guaranteed to end up in a conversation with someone. There are also quite a few guards in the market places, who may or may not have had an eye on me, this made me slightly nervous, too.

I'm still not really sure on what is OK, here, as far as blatantly photographing local women is concerned. The two female portraits I have so far are of people I'd met and talked to for a long while, whereas the men are mainly people I asked on the off-chance.

I did get a photo in the end, but it wasn't so great. I had one of those days of photographic malaise; most people I asked said no and no matter how long I hung around an area, pretending to check my phone, I just couldn't get the shot I had in my head.

This one was taken at the end of the night (which is early here, as there is nothing to do after 9pm) and although I'm not so keen on the execution of it, I thought the gender divided lines at the bakery was interesting.

Better luck tomorrow, I hope.