Buying and Selling in Black and White

Buying and selling. Where to start? Well, if you’re selling, setting your wares out appetisingly is probably the traditional way to go, so my featured photo is of a front window in Betty’s, Harrogate’s well known tea room and bakery.

The soft sell continues inside. But when curiosity prompted us to stick our noses through the door of this jewellers’ in Seoul, we very promply departed, realising this was Not Our Scene. Or budget.

Of course, sometimes shop window and point-of-sale are one and the same, as with this sales van, where all the driver has to do is park up, leave the driver’s cab and pop behind his built in counter.

These days though, shopping can be all about the shopping mall. Clean, cool seductive surroundings are intended to sooth us into opening up our wallets and come prepared to spend, spend, spend. Here’s the Victoria Gate Shopping Centre in Leeds.

Life couldn’t be more different in another modern shopping centre, Mercat dels Encants, Barcelona. Crazily juxtaposed ceiling mirrors reflect the scenes below of bartering, haggling over anything from rolls of cheap fabric to flea market goods that look as if they’ve been around for decades.

My favourite shopiing experiences are often serendipitous. On our way to Scarborough last week, we paused in a small town, Kirkbymoorside, to stretch our legs and have a coffee. It turned out to be market day. And there was someone selling rather exotic mushrooms: some that he’d foraged – others that he’d grown himself. We couldn’t buy as we weren’t going to be home that night. But his enthusiasm had him talking to us for quite a while as he described his wares in detail, even though he knew he wouldn’t make a sale to us that day. He now has two loyal fans who will hunt him down very soon.

So what can you tell us in monochrome photos about buying and selling? You may have seen someone shaking hands on a deal. You may have visited a trade warehouse and seen forklift trucks going about their business. You may have visited a cattle market, or an auction. Or you may just like to show us your weekly shop. When you have a post ready to publish (do join in!) please link it back to this post, and to Leanne’s Monochrome Madness page, as without Leanne, there would be no Monochrome Madness.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness