"A lifetime of hair-dye and broken dreams"

While the symmetry of the furniture, the perfect placement of the teapot, the poster and the flipflops, and the incredible linear poise of the woman all look like something out of a feature for an interior design magazine - "Peelingwallpaper" perhaps - this is pretty much a street photo, taken in about 40 seconds (with the clock starting from the moment when I spotted her sitting in the halflight of what was actually an unused shop, reaching its midway point when I stepped inside, tilted my camera slightly upwards from its resting place at my chest and looked her in the eye - which is the most effective way I know of getting permission without words or fuss - and finishing up when I, crouched on the floor with my back against the wall (and with a little prayer to the makers of the Canon P mode on my lips), quickly pressed the trigger. But tell me: do you think it was 40 seconds well spent..?