The first eight following photographs were shot in 1973
Street vendors in Parakou, Benin.
The clothes vendors in this
photograph were listening to the music of a small portable radio. A water
peddler was walking down the road in search of his own sale.
A street vendor takes a nap while her colleague watches the store in
Benin’s Cotonou.
Here, not far from the previous small business, is another one. Selling
on the streets is the courageous alternative to doing nothing when unable to
get employment.
And here, just across the street, as is evident in the previous shot, is
a more sophisticated and alluring small business. The large words
say:
Do you want to be elegant like
us? Then get shod here by Quo Vadis
(the owners wrongly
used the French word “galant” for “elegant”).
The small yellow sign says: High Shoemaking
Fashion.
An unfinished basket out front is waiting for last touches.
Expert barber waiting to give his next haircut in Porto Novo, Benin.
This poor kid in Niamey, Niger, may have skippd school to help his
family put some food on the table.
Here, near Bertoua, Cameroon, monkeys for the pot, wearing white price
tags, were being offered to passing motorists. Tails tied to heads helped buyers
to conveniently carry their purchase home like a handbag.
Delicious organic tomatoes being sold in a small corner of the sprawling
Kumasi market of Ghana in 1992.
Proud owner of a store specializing in the sale of
kente cloth, hand woven in wooden looms in Bonwire, Ghana, and elsewhere among
that country’s Ashanti.
All the photographs of this blog are copyrighted.
No usage permitted without prior authorization.
