Too cliché? Not really.
This photo shows the daily routine of a simple working class man in Yangon. How many times he does it in a day I have no idea. I only saw him a couple of times during my morning photo walks.
The bus arrives, he gets off with this massive burlap sack, tosses it over his shoulder, crosses the road and heads into a small alley between the half-finished half-broken houses and shops. Maybe I should try to follow him next time, I wonder where it will lead to and what I’ll discover.
Nowadays we mostly see this scene in old movies & pictures, forgetting that in some parts of the world it is still the day to day life of certain individuals. Physical labour. You’ve probably seen pieces of equipment designed to carry nearly everything for you. Forget cars, trucks and forklifts. Stick to trolleys. How many versions of those exist and just what can they not carry? When is the last time you carried a bag of potatoes on your shoulder? Yeah yeah yeah the 50kg you lift above your head during an overhead shoulder press in the gym certainly is an accomplishment, but fuck! If that’s what comes to your mind when reading this, then…well…not much to be done there I’m afraid😂 I lift those too (nowhere near 50kg though haha🤣) but when I saw him lift up that bag, his face stretching in every direction and the effort visible as clear as the day with a break of sweat, he walked away, every step slow and careful so he doesn’t topple over to one side, how he put it down, caught his breath, looked at me as I snapped another shot, picked it up again and disappeared….I was left with a *daaaaamn*. That’s what grandma and dad meant when they were talking about their laborious childhood.
I remember thinking to myself how fit he seemed and how straight he walked. I could try to lift that up and break my back in the process 😣Meanwhile my grandma used to do that day in day out all day long every day; carrying bags of tapioca, sugarcane, grass and what not to get enough money to barely cover the food needs for the whole family. They were 8 kids.
Cliché? I don’t think so. Do you?
Settings for the this snap were pretty straight forward; aperture priority, f/1.8, ISO 100, 1/640s.
It’s interesting how looking at a photo can take you on a day dreaming & reflective journey whereby you relate something you see in a photo with things you heard about or read about but never actually saw. As your brain creates the link, it suddenly dawns on you like the break of daylight on misty morning. Next? Unknown feelings that overwhelm you as you try to swim through the waterfall of emotions raining down on you. A beautiful thing when you experience it nonetheless.
Enjoy the swim! 😉
R