En Los Mercados

I have spent the past two days exploring markets throughout the city and taking photos of them for my final assignment. I think my photojournalistic skills have gotten much better and I have felt very welcome by many of the vendors--it's been an extraordinarily unique and enjoyable experience. On Thursday, I literally felt consumed by the expansiveness of some of these markets. On one street, covered tents lined both sidewalks for blocks and blocks with merchants stacked on top of each other. I eventually stopped keeping track of where I was because it was too overwhelming.

I probably spent the majority of my time in La Mercado de Merced, a market several blocks East of the historical district of the city that occupies a number of buildings and sidewalks. I think I only saw a small fraction of the entire place, but what I did see was very cool. In the fruit and vegetable market, for example, I could walk for hundreds and hundreds of feet and run into neatly stacked row after row of the same vegetable.

Most of the merchants were very receptive to my presence. While there were a few people there were either apathetic or didn't want me to take their photos, most were awesome about it. I'd slowly walk around the markets with my camera wrapped around my wrist and in front of me. After I passed some people, they would call my attention and ask that I take their photos. Others would point to their neighboring friends and ask me to take photos of them, but would refuse to have their own picture taken. If anyone seemed too eager to have their own photo taken, the other merchants would tease them and whistles would ring out throughout the market.