These faces have stayed with me for more than forty years. They came from a market high in Ecuador’s Andes. I shot them in 1984 when I was traveling through the country with rolls of slide film and only a few words of Spanish.
The original slides have faded badly over the decades, taking on the reddish cast common to aging film. With modern editing tools (and a little help from ChatGPT), I was able to bring them back to life, though still a bit red.
Looking at them now transports me to a place that felt worlds away from home. Women in felt hats and colorful shawls carried babies on their backs, farmers led pigs through the muddy streets, and vendors bargained over vegetables while neighbors stopped to catch up. I was one of only a handful of outsiders, easy to spot not just because of my camera and clothes, but because I towered over almost everyone.
With my limited Spanish, we talked about buying and selling in the market, our families, and mostly their fascination with New York City, my home.