A moment of break…

I made this image at a street market in central Italy, just as the vendors were preparing for the day ahead. It was early, cold, and the air smelled of roasted chestnuts and diesel from delivery vans. These two stood silently, each holding a small cup—likely coffee—while surrounded by synthetic softness still wrapped in plastic. Quilts, towels, fleece. The kind of items whose colour is always a little too bright under cloudy skies.

Technically, the shot is far from pristine. It’s handheld, slightly out of focus at the edges, and not particularly well exposed. But I’m not sorry. What it lacks in clinical sharpness it gains in truth. This wasn’t a moment that begged for perfection. It required speed, discretion, and a bit of audacity.

I composed the image with the foreground filled by product—horizontal stacks that draw the viewer in and up toward the human interaction. If we can call it that. They’re not looking at each other. They’re not smiling. They’re just sharing the silence of the in-between: before shouting prices, before bartering, before the grind begins. The tension is subtle, and that’s what I was after.

The depth of field was shallow enough to keep the focus where it needed to be—on the faces and gestures—while allowing the less relevant elements to soften. And the lighting, diffuse as it was from an overcast sky, created a palette just dull enough to let the product packaging pop without becoming the subject.

This is an image of work, of waiting, of lives built around the informal economy. It’s not romanticised. It’s not dramatic. It’s simply honest. Photography doesn’t always need to elevate its subject; sometimes it just needs to recognise it.