marcia’s musings

Conversations in Ridley Market (c) Marcia Chandra

Clockwise from top left:
(1) Stall #2, Robert Evans, fruits & vegetables, working here since he was 10.
(2) Stall #41, Agnes Mensah, undergarments, moved here 8 years ago from Ghana.
(3) Stall #15, Susan Baldwin, eggs, whose stall has been in the family for 3 generations.
(4) Stall #138, Ahmed, textiles, arrived here from Turkey 4 years ago.

These are a set of portraits I took for a short story on Ridley Road Market in the Dalston area of London. As none of my original ideas were panning out and time was running out, I decided to do something on this amazing place near my house where I often shop. This market is like no other I have been to in London so far – busy every day except for Sunday, it is a thriving multicultural blend selling vegetables, eggs, shoes, cloth, soaps, luggage, and spiritual ointments, among other things. It feels like the popular markets I’ve been to in Brazil and Southeast Asia.

I really am not a fan of photos taken in markets – they just have this tourist feel about them. For this project, I decided to just focus more on the people, their stories and simple portraits. And, although I wasn’t that excited about it at first, it turned out to be quite fun.

I spent about 3 days hanging out talking to people and taking pictures. The first day I was just handholding the camera but it wasn’t working out very well as either people would say “no” or they didn’t take the ‘portrait’ aspect serious enough so that I could get a good, still, unsmiling image. Bringing the tripod and light reflector made a big difference – as I took (extra) time setting up the ’serious’ equipment, my new friends also became much more serious, encouraging their customers to wait for a few minutes, asking me how they look, where to look. I was able to spend at least 15 to 30 minutes with each person even though there were people all around. By the end, I even had people asking me if I would take their photo.

I read an interview with Vanessa Winship where she noted this similar technique when photographing school children in Turkey – though you might not need it, sometimes having big, serious equipment just helps to set the tone for what you are trying to achieve.

Anyways, there are a lot of interesting and funny conversations I had with people over those three days, too much to detail here, but perhaps I might look at keeping this project going over the year and compiling a complete picture of the market and people at a specific time… things will always change.

- London, UK, 7 degress Celsius, clear starry night, listening to the sound of silence.