Friday, June 29, 2007

Keeping the candles burning

burningthecandles

This is (perhaps) the most diverse shot I've ever put together in one frame. A sleeping man on the job (left), a busy man putting candles in a bundle while smoking a cig (middle), and a lady melting used candles in tin cans (right). All of them competing for one job...selling candles under the beating heat of the sun.

But these are no ordinary candles. These are specially made to accompany people's prayers, wishes, longing, requests, and other personal favors from (G)god. The candles are color coded. The black ones are for the dead; the red are for personal wishes, the yellow are for such and such. I actually interviewed one of them before but I seem to forget things. ;-) The point is...you can choose a particular colored candle depending on your prayer intention. Personally, I really find this weird. I know that colors affect our lives, but I didn't know they could affect our prayers too.

If you look at it in another way, selling candles is actually a good business because burnt candles are being re-used. The vendors scrape them again from the racks (or candleholders) to be re-used (melting, combining, coloring) so they could sell it again.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Left frame man image is impressive..

It is interesting composition.

Anonymous said...

nice one. but how is the wax going to help if there is no wick? do they have extra wick? but i thought the wax will slowly be burnt away? no? haha, sorry, i'm curious about these things and i'm not that good in science...

pieterbie said...

Yes, I like the concept of the value chain in this photo.
The woman with her head covered gives it something extra, something spooky.
I too find the concept of the colour codes somewhat perculiar.

Anonymous said...

Interesting trio capture! Lam mo I've always wanted to take pictures of those candle burners/sellers as well pero di ako maka tyempo.

Anonymous said...

I only ever use the "Black" ones for Satanic rights!!

Anonymous said...

Sae-gyu,
Annyong ha shimnikka!
thanks for dropping by.

Tien,
wick? do you mean the thread? yea, they have that. re-used candles, since they don't have the same colors yet, have to be melted altogether in tins. then they put one specific color. then they pour that in a mold along with the thread (or the wick as you refered to it).

Peter,
the woman covers his head with cloth because among the three, she's the only one without the huge umbrella. the two guys have them. i actually pity her. she melts candles under the heat. literally that is.

Ferdz,
kahit ata saang simbahan sa Pilipinas may mga tindera ng kandila. Sa LB din super dami. I-orrient ka pa nila sa mga kulay na dapat.

Mike,
hey, nice to know you're on the road again. saw the new site. you can always order the black candles. for very cheap price. ;-)

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