Antananarivo – often abbreviated to “Tana” – is the very congested capital city, and major metropolis, in one of the world’s most materially poor nations.
Many of its “entrepreneurial” residents cannot afford to buy or rent a walled and/or roofed structure in which to ply their trade.
This post’s street-working barber lacked anything remotely resembling his own “salon”, but his professional expertise and “service, with a smile” attitude were readily apparent.
I am not at all interested in taking “posed” photos of anyone, other than – and even then, rarely – someone I know well and like a lot, who is “relaxed and comfortable” with my camera’s presence.
Most images of people who are “mugging” for a visitor’s camera are banal…and fundamentally fake.
Q: what if I had shouted from my elevated vantage point, thereby drawing the attention of the street barber and his client, and I had then asked them – almost certainly via gestures rather than probably-useless English words – to look up and smile at my camera?
A: the result would have been yet another blandly trite “exotic” photo of people who had stopped doing the interesting thing in which they had been unselfconsciously engaged, in order to grin-on-demand for a tourist.
I much preferred to let the barber and his client get along with their authentic lives, uninterrupted. (whilst I attempted to document one moment in those real lives)
Photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 9.06 am on 10 May 2018, from the hill atop which sits the burnt-out “shell” of the former royal palace in Tana.
Footnote:
There is no such thing as a reliable ranking of the world’s nations in terms of GDP, PPP or relative level of “wellbeing”.
It is, however, worth noting that one recent attempt placed Madagascar at 182 of 192 nations.
Madagascar sat 60 places below Bangladesh.
According to this list, the “average” Bangladeshi person’s spending power is more than 400% higher – four times – than is the “average” Madagascan’s.