"Halės" Market Portraits

Halės Market

Halės market has been around for over a hundred years and has deep cultural history for the city of Vilnius. It is a source of income for many of second, third, fourth generation salespeople there, and has also become a cultural hub for the younger generation in the recent years. But what drew me to this market was the diversity and the style of the people that work there and of the regular visitors too. I had wanted to take their portraits for a long time, but had a really hard time having anyone agree to it.

In January of 2020 I rented out a cubicle at the market, next to the raw meat and clothing stalls and decided I had to become a ‘local’ at the market to gain the other’s trust. I build a little portrait studio inside my cubicle and started getting to know the people and inviting them over to have their picture taken. The next three weeks have been truly inspiring for me, as I got to know more about these people, their stories, and even made some friends. But most importantly, I wanted to capture a portrait of this market at this point in time.

I really wanted to make an exhibition of these photos at the market, but all my plans got derailed due to the current health situation and the quarantine in place, but I hope you can appreciate these photos digitally and one day I can put an exhibition up for the people that made this possible. Thank you Halė Market.

The market cubicle before the studio transformation

The cubicle after the ‘makeover’