I think I might be an incredibly dull person. I don’t eat meat; I don’t drink and I’ve never had a cigarette in my life. And yet I seem to have accrued a considerable number of pictures of smokers and, more recently, ‘vapers’.
I don’t really see the appeal of the smell of nicotine and tobacco (or unicorn sweat, or whatever flavours are in vogue for the vapers) but I have to admit that smoke adds atmosphere to images. People seem to become lost in their thoughts amidst the smoke.
Growing up, everything smelled of smoke, even non-smoking households like ours. I remember my uncles visiting with their brown tobacco-stained fingers and leaving smoke lingering in the air. It was normal at the time; not in a Marlboro Man kind of way, more in a polluted coal mining town sort of way.
The UK smoking ban works well for me. Many of the interesting characters are now driven to the pub doorways where they stand like guardians to their domain. A much more readily accessible supply of characters for us teetotal bores and no longer any need to nurse an orange juice for a couple of hours hoping for subjects.
