I was also trying for kind of a feeling of a timewarp type of experience.
The shop is kind of like, "... it feels like the guy and the barber are suspended in their own world, apart from anything around them ...." (to quote you). Except when it if full of college students seeking cheap haircuts, then it is just a run down old barber shop.
Unfortunately Mark uses those little scissors like a lot of modern stylists do, maybe I should take in my old style ones for him to hold, and replace those containers with some old time glass hair tonic bottles of colored oils? Nah... Too contrived.
BTW, taking your advice about being unobtrusive, I snuck this shot with the 4x5 Speed Graphic and a #5 flashbulb <grin>. --Actually, that is part of the ambivalence that you are getting from the photo, they are posing at not posing. It is an effect of the huge camera and big flash bulbs. Your subjects just don't feel you are doing something trivial when taking their picture with it. It is not an effect you tend to see in modern photographs. So this is just a snapshot that the people in it did not feel was just a snapshot while it was being taken.
--
Shel Belinkoff wrote:
Disagree ... the sink is part of the story, as are the lotions on the shelf behind the sink.
My first impression is that "something's missing." Some emotional element, perhaps, or maybe the scissors in the barber's hand should be evident ... possibly showing more directly rather than alluding to the snipping of the hair. I think a wider shot showing more of the shop would give a stronger sense of place. Usually there are things happening in a barber shop, things on the walls, magazines laying around ... it feels like the guy and the barber are suspended in their own world, apart from anything around them .... ahh, that's what I'm feeling ... a disconnection between the subjects and their environment, and a resultant disconnection from the photograph. I'm not drawn into it, but, rather, feel I'm just glancing quickly at the scene through a window while on my way to somewhere else, perhaps around the corner and up those stairs ...
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
