Fruit sellers of Los Angeles

Stella Ajose, a photography student from Russia, has been shooting a series of pictures of immigrant fruit vendors on the streets around L.A. Her teacher, Ophelia Chong, blogs about her at KCET's SoCal Focus:

The Outsider, as told by Stella

I started out doing this work as a complete outsider. I spoke no Spanish, and it was difficult to explain to the fruit sellers the purpose of my project or why they should trust me. However, as I photographed more and more subjects, I started bringing prints from my previous shoots to every new location. Seeing the prints made the sellers appreciate my project and want to be a part of it. Also, over time, I picked up a few phrases in Spanish, which helped a lot, as most of the sellers speak almost no English at all....

Photo: Stella Ajose