Document the wait

The scene is simple: a few men, sitting or squatting, in an indoor market in Zanzibar . Blocks of worn polystyrene serve as stalls . On one, whole octopuses , still damp. On the other, crustaceans. Beside them, a red basin, a hand-held scale , a shiny floor, a rough wall. No decor. No ostentatious signs. Only what is there.

Octopus is a central food in Zanzibar . Fished artisanally, often by hand or with a harpoon, it is sold by weight, fresh, early in the morning, in these modest spaces. These seafood markets , discreet, away from tourist areas, organize the economic life of many families.

A dense, tense, silent composition

The photography is nothing spectacular. And that's precisely what it conveys. A documentary scene : density, coherence, and a muted tension. The natural light cuts through the volumes without flattering them.

The rough polystyrene , the shiny flesh of the octopuses , the faded fabrics , the absorbed postures —each element is in its place. None seeks to dominate the other. The whole is held together by a form of visual restraint.

The image doesn't show an action. It shows the in-between: the moment when nothing is happening yet, or no longer. The place is functional, without staging . There is matter , expectation , weight . We feel that it is working, even when stopped. It is not a stolen moment, it is a moment left as is.

A photograph from the series Valoriser l’Invisible

This photo belongs to the series Valoriser l'Invisible , dedicated to forgotten gestures , discreet professions and marginal spaces . Here, there is no folklore, no misery, no aestheticization: just a real, raw moment, captured at human height in a Zanzibar market where octopuses are weighed, sold, transformed , every day, without an official image.