Traveling is a bit like being a photo journalist. Your photographs may not be seen by hundreds of thousands of readers on the front page of a major daily, but you are essentially photographing for the same reason, to document. A person, a place, a moment in time, you are documenting your experiences one click at a time.
Weaving is a traditional skill that is still practiced throughout the world, and not just by women. In fact, we visited the home of a weaver in Guatemala, Luis, who probably would bristle at the thought that weaving is women’s work. From Guatemala to Istanbul and Johannesburg to Tashkent, people use weaving not just to make clothe, but to tell a story. Often in the geometric designs or symettry of a carpet, an entire story is told, you just have to learn to read it.
As a traveler attempting to document our experience through photography, we were often tempted to take pictures of people without their knowledge or permission. Posed photos often aren’t the best ones, and it can be difficult to capture the experience of a person hard at work on film if you’ve interrupted their train of thought. We rarely took photographs of people without their permission, feeling ashamed when we did, even if the person was across the street. I had wanted to capture the weavers in Uzbekistan, but it wasn’t until we visited a women’s cooperative did I have the guts to pull out the camera and take a few shots. These women were laughing and singing to the radio when we walked into the room. They looked up at us, smiled and promptly went back to their work after nodding in agreement to our request to take some pictures.
I love this photograph because it captures so much of what was going on in the room, the multiple sets of hands at work at on one loom, the vibrant colors of their dresses and the movement of their hands in unison with each other.
To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.
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