The Women of the Otavalo Market
07-2018 // ROMAN KRÄMER
I love shooting at local markets. Especially when you can meet proud shop owners like the women on the pictures. When I visited the Otavalo Market in Ecuador, famous for its “artisanal“ clothing and jewelry, I focused on shooting women. In such markets, women are not only the representative face and vendor for the store. But you also get the impression that they are the real string pullers in the background.
Some of the women got my attention because of all their gold necklaces. One of the older ladies laughed at me with her mouth wide open and was not ashamed, although she had almost no teeth left. When I asked her a little later for a portrait, she reacted very differently to the camera and was quite concerned not to show her teeth. I experience this very often when people are not satisfied with their teeth or do not want to see them on photos. It is a bit of a pity, because so often they still can share a huge joy, even though they may not have any incisors anymore.
If you look precise, can you read their facial expressions? Or in other words: What is their face saying to you? I do not exactly know. Every time I think that I see a certain expression and think “that’s it“ I get distracted by something else. For example, by the thought that we should not always read and interpret the faces of other people, because we will never know it exactly.
“Happiness is only real when shared“. This quote is following me since I watched the movie “Into the Wild“ some time ago. (Totally recommended). The quote is so true, and it becomes really visible in the movie. The ladies in these pictures easily shared their happiness with me. They waved at me, smiled at me and created a laugh in my face. So, use them as example and share your happiness with other people to make it real.
As the city has become more of a tourist attraction, many of the goods sold in the markets are mass-produced in nearby factories and sold in the market by middlemen. No, middle women! As I said in my first post in this series, it is all about the women that are the shop vendors.
We have joyful examples in these pictures here.
It probably isn’t surprising that commercially made goods are featured at an “artisan” market. While you’ll find lots of handmade textile, ceramic, wood, silver, leather, and metal products, there are lots of imported and imprinted souvenir items.
My personal favorite shot is the pictures of one woman in the portrait format. When I saw her and the light at the moment I knew that I might have the chance for a good shot. She even had her upper row of teeth completely golden what made her smile pretty unique. I even took a picture of her smiling but sadly it was not sharp. Every (street) photographer comes a long this moment when everything seems to be perfect about a shot. But then the image is not sharp.
Anyways, these pictures gives me a lot.
Please enjoy some other scene shots below.
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