There’s a wonderful book-shop in Alfriston in Sussex. A warren of rooms and hidden corners, an armchair to sit and dip, new and second-hand volumes, maps and cards, and the day I was there, lavender flavoured shortbread handed from a tin to anyone who bought a book. They don’t believe in bar codes or scanners, the owner painstakingly writes the details of purchases in a big, heavy ledger like Dickens. 

There’s nothing particularly special about this photo – an iPhone was used because I had it, not a Leica Q3 or a Fuji X100 Vl, a 100 megapixel Hasselblad or some dusty lovingly preserved film stock. It’s a snap but it’s a moment any photographer or book lover would recognise – a back view, head lowered and bent to one side to better read the spines, hands clasped behind his back, lost in dreamy contemplation of new and old tomes, the lines on the floor drawing the eye into the picture.

I don’t know if he bought a book or not. But I did; I bought two. And got two pieces of crumbly buttery shortbread as my reward.