Street Vendors
“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness” - Paul Strand
Influenced by Theodore Géricault’s masterpiece, The Raft of Medusa and its portrayal of hope and despair and the global migration of immigrants from the diaspora to America, I wanted to emphasize the individuality and courage of immigrant Street Venders. Desperate migrants are willing to risk their lives, since there is no opportunity in third-world countries to go beyond poverty and the ability to feed a family is almost non-existent.
Street Vending gives the immigrant aspiration and hope to achieve the American Dream. The existential purpose in photographing Street Vendors was to uncover, through portraiture, the human spirit and life’s struggles chiseled into immigrant faces. As in The Raft of Medusa, the “face is the mirror of the soul” is conveyed in the figures faces. To capture the power of the facial details, I photographed extreme close-ups with the ultra large 20 X 24 Polaroid camera capturing the intensity, determination, and feelings of each Street Vendor.
Street Vendors
“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness”
Paul Strand
Influenced by Theodore Géricault’s masterpiece, The Raft of Medusa and its portrayal of hope and despair and the global migration of immigrants from the diaspora to America, I wanted to emphasize the individuality and courage of immigrant Street Venders. Desperate migrants are willing to risk their lives, since there is no opportunity in third-world countries to go beyond poverty and the ability to feed a family is almost non-existent.
Street Vending gives the immigrant aspiration and hope to achieve the American Dream. The existential purpose in photographing Street Vendors was to uncover, through portraiture, the human spirit and life’s struggles chiseled into immigrant faces. As in The Raft of Medusa, the “face is the mirror of the soul” is conveyed in the figures faces. To capture the power of the facial details, I photographed extreme close-ups with the ultra large 20 X 24 Polaroid camera capturing the intensity, determination, and feelings of each Street Vendor.
Shot with a 20 X 24 Polaroid Camera.