These people worked at Central Market before it closed

Photographer Hari Ho captures the people and the finer details of life and work at the Central Market in 1985, shortly before its closure, in his Central Market portraiture show at Wei-Ling Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. -- NORAFIFI EHSAN/The Star

There is a boy in one of the portraits who remains a bit of a mystery to the photographer till this very day, more than three decades from when it was taken. It is the only picture hanging on the wall at the Central Market exhibition at Wei-Ling Gallery in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur that the photographer has unfinished business with.

The portrait shows the child sitting on a wooden barrel surrounded by gunny sacks, light streaming in from the skylight overhead and bathing everything it touched in light and shadow. This single moment of tranquillity amid the hustle and bustle of the market was captured by Australian-based photographer Hari Ho just moments before the boy was called away to work. It was a fortuitous meeting between the boy and Ho, set against the backdrop of the impending closure of KL’s Central Market in September 1985.