The Joy Of Finding A Bargain At A Madrid Market

Background Story

This image was created during a stroll in sunny Madrid, Spain, in August 2019.

I used my home leave from my assignment to South Africa to spend a week in Madrid with my wife, prior to traveling on to The Hague, the Netherlands, for some time with my youngest daughter.

Madrid has an abundance of squares (plazas), shopping streets, small back alleys, and parks to explore. The weather was great that week and we enjoyed a couple of days strolling through the beautiful capital of Spain.

That particular day we visited several open-air street markets, where a large diversity of goods was being sold. Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, musical instruments, potter, leatherware, shoes, t-shirts, artisan bread, cheese, handheld fans, bags, tools; you name it, they sold it. And fabrics of course.

A fabrics stall at a market is always interesting to observe. Often the merchandise is just laying on a table or on the ground, and prospective buyers are picking it up, holding it to the light, and showing it to each other to determine if it is the right quality, size, and color for whatever they are creating at home.

And always there is this hope to find a real bargain.

As you can imagine, this creates numerous situations to make a photo. And this was just the right one for me.

How It Was Made

Only a couple of weeks earlier I was fortunate to purchase a just CLA’d Leica M4 and a Summaron 35mm f/2.8 lens for a very reasonable price. And since my wife brought my Voigtländer VCII lightmeter from home, I was experimenting with the camera, lens, lightmeter combination.

As you will know by now, I love black and white images and I had my favorite film, Ilford Delta 400, loaded.

Why It Works

The subject matter of this image is right up my alley: the busyness of the market, people interacting with each other, and the play of light and shadows.

The main subject is formed by the two hugging women in the center of the frame.

The pile of fabric and the piece held up by the lady to the left create a nice diagonal, leading the viewer’s eye through the composition.

The small tree and its support to the right and the larger tree to the left frame the main subjects of the image, while at the same time creating sub-frames for other points of interest: see the walking man perfectly framed by the small tree and the wooden support? This was a nice bonus that I only discovered after getting the film back from the lab.

As always, the light plays a major factor in making this image work for me. The harsh sunlight to the left and right of the group of women, with the shadows on the street in the foreground and the dark leaves of the trees, provides an additional frame for the main subject.

All parts work together to create several frames around the center of the image, focusing the view towards the two women in the center.

How Can This Image Be Used

There are several ways to use an image like this in a commercial setting.

There might be a hotel nearby that can use this image to show their guests the area they are located at, and how close they are to classical Madrid markets.

And the City of Madrid could use it to show prospective visitors its relaxed but lively street life and market culture, ideally for tourists who want to experience the real Spanish.

Although countries and cities are opening up after what hopefully was the worst of the Covid-19 / Coronavirus impact it might be a while until we can strolling the markets of Madrid again. Until then, images like this one will remind us of the better times to come.