Every day, tons of rice arrives at Yangon’s river port. Young men carry the huge bags to a holding area, where they are stacked in enormous piles. (You can get a glimpse of the physical effort that goes into this job in my photograph of a group of rice carriers on the move, which is displayed in my black and white gallery. See it by clicking on the thumbnail at the bottom.

This is a more abstract approach to an image devoted to the same job. Here we see two carriers, one from behind, and one just suggested by only a single leg, working with the stack itself. The diagonal thrust of that leg, entering the frame in the upper left hand corner, leads directly to the bag of rice on the other man’s back, and echoes the line of his dangling arm.

There are more than 50 bags in this shot. All were carried here on somebody’s back. And all of them will be carried away from here on somebody else’s back, as well.