‘It was so fleeting, yet weirdly they were almost posing’: Richard Chambury’s best phone photo

You’d be forgiven for thinking this shot was taken during the pandemic; an inventive, impromptu attempt at masking up, perhaps. Instead, Richard Chambury took it in the spring of 2013, in London’s Victoria Park.

“My daughter was 11 and to get her out and about on the weekends we used to go cycling,” Chambury says. “We eventually discovered this was not her favourite pastime; she’s a reader, and likes the warmth. But we always saw odd things going on, people doing the morning walk of shame dolled up from the night before, or wild birds and swans knocking about.”

On this particular Sunday afternoon, it was cold and raining, and the pair were in a hurry to get home. Chambury took just one shot of this person as they passed by, on his phone. “It was so fleeting, yet weirdly they were almost posing. Londoners can be like that in some respects, or they can be quite aggy! Of course, wearing a bag on your head is an obvious thing for someone to photograph,” Chambury says. “Having zoomed in a few times, I am quite sure they are looking straight down the lens. But they said nothing and kept walking.”

And what of the identity of the subject of the photo – who is the man behind the bag? “I have no idea. Perhaps it was a celebrity? It could be Lord Lucan. Whoever he is, he’s adaptive to the weather.”