“Cucumberers”

The “Way Out” program (in Hungarian: “Kiútprogram“) is a labour market program for people in deep poverty in Hungary, run by an NGO. I was photographing people in the program in 2013 to show their everyday life during their work. This spans phases from arranging the poles, through planting the cucumber seeds through watering, protecting from pests to picking and selling the cucumber. It is a humbling experience to see poor people, whom the state-run system can often provide with the simplest jobs only, manage a set of tasks well that entail risk, require endurance and diligence. A few portraits at the end are a tribute to all participants. (Another subset of these pictures were published in the index.hu, a then fairly social-minded internet news portal. In much worse quality, unfortunately.)