Do Not Touch

The sign was the first thing I saw — handwritten in blue felt-tip, barely taped to the surface: “NON TOCCARE! grazie.”No threat, no fine, just polite instruction. But it said more than warning signs ever could. A gesture of trust. Or desperation. Or both.

This old cash register sat alone in the corner of a counter, no longer in use, no longer even fully functional by the look of it. Keys faded, paint chipped, buttons smoothed by time and repetition. It didn’t scream vintage charm — it whispered I’ve seen things.

I shot it in available indoor light, pushing the ISO enough to recover the midtones without drowning in noise. I wanted the wear and tear to show — the way the plastic buttons have yellowed, how the decals on the digits have cracked. The slight tilt was intentional. I didn’t want a catalogue shot. This wasn’t product photography; it was portraiture.

The framing is tight, cropped just enough to force the viewer in. There’s no context — no café interior, no hands operating it — just the machine and the silent plea not to be touched. That’s where the humour lies. This isn’t a secure object. It’s a relic. And yet, like an old family heirloom, it commands its own kind of respect.

The shot works because of the tension: functional versus forgotten, threat versus invitation. The soft colour palette — warm wood, faded whites, muted reds — keeps it grounded in nostalgia without slipping into cliché. I didn’t grade it to look older. Age is already baked into the image.