Time Frame: Weight Right Here

A street scene between a vendor and customer along Hamdan Street in Abu Dhabi sometime in 1974. Courtesy of Jack Burlot

There were more than just bargains on offer at the Abu Dhabi souq in the mid-1970s. Street vendors were on hand to supply everything from a snapshot to send home to a quick repair on a pair of sandals. This budding entrepreneur set up with a set of scales, and for a few fils would provide your exact weight. Street weighing machines were once part of the landscape all over the world, but in an age of cheap electronics have largely vanished, except from some cities in Asia. The location of this scene, taken by the French photographer Jack Burlot, would be somewhere in the maze of alleyways behind Hamdan Street, where the souq was located. In the background is a photographer's studio, a display of alarm clocks and watches and another vendor whose stock includes clothing and rugs. Instead of a souq, we now have the supermarket, which supplies everything in this photograph, including the scales. * James Langton