Life in the Alotenango Dump

A special note regarding the image above, These are the hands of a young child no older than ten that works in the dump alongside his family.






This morning I accompanied two of the workshop students on a trip to the Alotenango dump which acts as Antigua's main dump. There are quite a few families that live and work on the grounds, they spend their time sifting through the garbage in search of valuables such as plastics and metals to later sell. I'll tell you as I told the students on our way back from the dump, for a growing photographer photographing such a scene, this was a maturing assignment and subject matter. Watching and photographing this woman with two children, one of which is tied onto her back, searching through the dump for plastic bottles is simply moving. It's difficult not to be affected by your subject matter and their surrounding enviroment but you must for the moment, put those those feelings aside and work on telling the story.