Fascinating Portraits of Door-to-Door Salesmen In a Nairobi Slum

Photographer Filippo Romano documents the wandering salesmen of Africa in his series Nomadic Sellers. Shot mostly in eastern Nairobi, the series focuses on peddlers of Mathare, a slum with a density of 600,000 people in just 3 square miles. The tradesmen are often self-made, their jobs created through poverty-driven entrepreneurship and a necessity to fend for oneself. From traditional medicines to Chinese lampshades, merchants go door-to-door with their many wares. Pesticides are the most lucrative with profits between 1000 to 2000 shellini (10 to 20 euros). Those who mend plastic tubs or others with more menial products make a tenth of that sum.

An indicator an ever-expanding market, Nomadic Sellers is a fascinating look into the consumeristic desires of even the poorest in the world. With SIM cards and mobile phones rapidly becoming hot commodities, Romano hints that be it practical or frivolous, longing for material possessions is a universally human trait.

via fotovisura

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