“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.”
My antidote for a long week is to rise early on Sunday morning and head out to the local farmer's market. The market grounds me, reassures me, and reconnects me with the cycle of the seasons.
I mostly look at the food but sometimes like to watch the people respond to the market's offerings. People mostly react to produce by wanting to touch it. So, I like to look at market hands. Hands grab at produce, exchange money, and gesture to friends. People weigh, caress, judge, and compare the fruits and vegetables with their hands.
In some countries you aren't allowed to touch the produce before you buy it. That changes the hand action at the markets. But the activity is no less interesting. The vendors do most of the hand work and they often do so with great flourish.
Photographing market hands isn't easy. They move quickly in and out of the picture fram and lots of good photos are lost to bluriness or bad composition. It's a bit like photographing birds—a thousand frustrations are the byproduct of one good photo.
