Mark lost in Mark's music

This is Mark on the train listening to the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack.

By his expression, I knew instinctively that he was not listening to Judy is a Punk by the Ramones (which is also on that soundtrack), the band that demonstrated that international fame can be achieved by wearing really tight jeans, learning 3 chords on the guitar and shouting 1, 2, 3, 4 very loudly at the beginning of each song (even for a 3 beat tempo or at the beginning of a sonata).

He is American (Mark, but Mark also, and so were Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee).

He is an art student (Mark, but not Mark who is a composer and not Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee who are dead... the life expectancy of a Ramone being scarily low)

He likes photography and still predominantly uses a 35mm camera (a what?!?!)

He is an all-round nice guy.

How do I know all of this? Can I guess all that much from someone?s expression as they are lost in music on the train? Special psychic power? PhD in bullshitting?

No, I asked for his permission.
After taking the shot, not before as I would have had to nudge him, ask for permission and then inquire whether he would mind resuming his activity and look natural...

And we got to chat a bit (not long, my stop was coming).
Which was nice.

Thank you Graham for teaching me to ask for permission. It has truly changed the way I photograph people.
Thank you Mark for being such an easy going model. You've got my e-mail address, drop me a line if you want the full res picture.

I like it.