1961 May - Bolivia. This was a scene from Otavi, a Quechua village in the southern highlands. A woman with shawl and traditional hat is holding a spinning spindle or p'ushka for wool. It was a market day and the men are dressed in their best home-spun clothes. I was based in Otavi for ten days with a university team observing a United Nations project for 'regional development', as it was then known. Otavi was so far from the outside world we were able to slip into a wonderfully simple daily life. I did not get a chance to return to Otavi until late in the 1990s by which time it had grown. Today I would find it difficult to recognise this spot.

Camera Leica lll F with a collapsible Leitz f 5 cm 1:3.5 lens. Film Kodak Tri X Pan at F 5.6 - 1/500 second. The camera was on loan and my film was cut from bulk rolls and loaded in a re-loadable leica cassette. It was a convenient low cost way of carrying film but not ideal. The film had to be loaded in the dark and static electricity always attracted dust which shows on the negative. Developed by hand in La Paz using May and Baker Promicrol at normal dilution..

Negative: Bolivia 61/64-33 © Tony Morrison