I Feed the People

This Doner Imbiss is right by the Studentenwohnheim (student housing) and many students walk a cross the street for a quick lunch. This Turkish man and his wife run the shop and are both really sweet. His wife even gives returning customers nicknames (mainly the boys). Last term she gave one of my friends the nickname Suesse Mause, which literally means sweet mouse but actually means sweetie or sweetheart. You can see that they both try and make some form of personal connection with their customers. This man remembers how to make my donner just the I like it every time and I don't even have to tell him. Last term my friend Mickey spoke much better German than I did and talked with them a lot more than me. My approach in asking them if I could photograph them was simple. I mentioned Mickey's name and they immediately said yes because he also took a picture with them for a class project. Sometimes you have to work with what you have and I knew that I could connect with them if I mentioned his name. I also talked to them about working here in Berlin and they said that they really like to work in this area because their customers are people who live in the area and business is good. Most times when I'm waiting at the bus stop I see the same people hanging out in the shop and outside at the tables, so the owners are at work but they are also always surrounded by friends.

I tried to capture a lot of elements of the shop but keep the Donner Man as the main focus of the picture. The knobs of the microwave are placed in the bottom left corner which I believes help anchor the photo. It looks as though the vanishing point is towards the upper left hand corner so the picture reads from right to left starting with the donner man. It also helps that he is wearing a bright yellow t-shirt which is the only burst of color in the picture.