Saw something sweet and beautiful in the garbage dump today. There is one woman average looking with short hair and maybe 35 years old who I have seen 5 or 6 times, who never makes eye contact with me, she always looks away when I am near. This morning when I saw her with a group of children (hers I think) and said "Minga La Ba" to her she sort of just grunted a hello with distant eyes.
Later in the day I was photographing a group of workers digging through freshly dumped garbage (garbage trucks bring fresh garbage all day). This woman (got to learn her name) was working in the group of about 8 workers. She was looking away from me and not making eye contact as usual as I photographed away, one of the men, the father of the bride from yesterday found something in the garbage and tossed it to this woman. I went closer to see what it was, it was 2 hair pins with pretty plastic beads inside a small bag. The women excitedly opened the bag, she had big eyes as she did this, you could see she was happy. She then put the 2 hairpins directly into her dirty, sweaty hair and she looked quite nice, the hairpins made her a bit more feminine, a bit special in this dirty smelly place. I smiled and said something, she looked up at me and I gave here a thumbs up signal with my hand and a smile, and she smiled back shyly! It was the first time I ever saw her smile, it was a very sweet moment. Later on maybe 20 minutes later I was on top of some garbage shooting down on the group and this woman looked directly up at me, directly into my eyes and smiled, she had become a pretty woman.
There are beautiful moments here, you just have to look a bit harder to find them.
Later in the day I was photographing a group of workers digging through freshly dumped garbage (garbage trucks bring fresh garbage all day). This woman (got to learn her name) was working in the group of about 8 workers. She was looking away from me and not making eye contact as usual as I photographed away, one of the men, the father of the bride from yesterday found something in the garbage and tossed it to this woman. I went closer to see what it was, it was 2 hair pins with pretty plastic beads inside a small bag. The women excitedly opened the bag, she had big eyes as she did this, you could see she was happy. She then put the 2 hairpins directly into her dirty, sweaty hair and she looked quite nice, the hairpins made her a bit more feminine, a bit special in this dirty smelly place. I smiled and said something, she looked up at me and I gave here a thumbs up signal with my hand and a smile, and she smiled back shyly! It was the first time I ever saw her smile, it was a very sweet moment. Later on maybe 20 minutes later I was on top of some garbage shooting down on the group and this woman looked directly up at me, directly into my eyes and smiled, she had become a pretty woman.
There are beautiful moments here, you just have to look a bit harder to find them.
