A Handcart, a Blue Scoop,
and a Row Facing the Stage.

The first thing I noticed in this photograph of Tacna Central Market in southern Peru was the sheer number of goods. Boxes and packets climb the shelves and continue almost to the floor. In the middle of it all, a handcart stands in the aisle beside a man and a shopper. People buying things and people working behind the counters share the same narrow strip of space.

The photograph does not tell us where the cart is headed next. Perhaps someone will make a little room and let it roll toward another stall. A market is a place to buy one particular thing, but it is also a place where hundreds of ordinary things shift position every day. Shopkeepers, passers-by, and customers briefly negotiate the aisle without announcing it. The two wheels beside the stacked shelves make that quiet choreography visible. I would probably keep watching until the cart found its way through.

In a photograph of a sweet seller in Agadir, Morocco, the goods are arranged almost like a landscape. There are round sweets and narrow ones, sugar-coated pieces in red, green, yellow, and pale blue, and darker piles rising behind them. Several bright blue scoops rest across the little hills. At the edge of the picture, a pair of hands is filling a clear bag.

How many kinds will go into it, and how much of each? There must be a short exchange between the buyer and seller before the next scoop moves. The colours invite indecision, yet the work itself looks direct: open a bag, choose a pile, measure, and move on. I would happily linger for the few seconds it takes one person’s selection to become one finished bag. The pleasure of choosing and the seller’s familiar motions share the same crowded counter. Until another bag opens, the blue scoops seem to wait quietly among the sweets.

A photograph taken in Weert in the southern Netherlands on August 30 shows children looking up at a temporary stage during a Back2School party. Five performers stand beneath a large inflatable canopy. The picture does not tell us the details of the songs or dancing, but the children gathered at the front are all facing the same way.

Because they are different heights, each child must have a slightly different view even from the same small patch of square. Adults watch from farther back, while other people appear to be passing through the surrounding shops and cafés. The organisers and the full programme have not been confirmed. Even so, it is easy to see a tiny audience form naturally in one corner of town. For a little while, the space in front of the stage has its own slower clock. I think I would notice that row of attentive backs before looking up at the performers.