between the shelves

free project
black/white documentation about the work in a supermarket

the cap market in obertürkheim/stuttgart is located a little hidden. there are 26 employees, 10,000 edeka articles on 1,000m², including a bakery and a butcher. it seems just like any other supermarket.

whoever is a frequent customer however, recognizes these little odd things between the shelves – hardly noticeable, but existing. most of them a little too delicate to speak them out loud: why does the young woman take so long to accept the deposit bottles? can’t she type faster? and what is so interesting about the bags of white bread that the elderly gentleman in the bright-yellow coat places in the shelf so slowly and affectionately? with a soft rattle a can of peaches falls out of the hand of a young man - if he only had placed them from the pallet in the shelf with both of his hands...

cap comes from handicap. it is a concept of the deaconry in baden-wuerttemberg. people with slight handicaps are working here, hardly noticeable, but nevertheless, these people would never have a chance at the "normal" labour market. what kind of handicaps is it that we are talking about? for example, slight motor dysfunctions in the hand - this doesn't reduce someone to a second class person.

however, it is almost impossible for a disabled person in germany to find a normal job. either they are shoved off to sheltered workshops or they do one unskilled job after another.

the people working in one of the 39 german cap markets know about their only chance and they are proud and happy to work there.

working with them however, is not always easy, knows the head of the store in obertürkheim. he experienced a little success story himself with the organisation cap. after an apprenticeship and working a while he ended up on the street, there were only very few job offerings. in the course of an initiative of the labour agency he got his first job in a cap market, as also 1-euro-workers are employed there. he was working there, he liked it there, he qualified further and now, four years later, he is the head of his own franchise store.

home delivery

“it is not difficult to work with my people”, he says in the first interview. “but it is also not easy – it’s jus different”. according to him, they needed, just as any other employee, instruction, intuition and an eye kept on them. “many of them are used to get out of any unpleasant situation with the excuse ‘i’m disabled’. most of them have such low self-confidence that they don’t dare to do anything; that also applies to the 1-euro-workers here.”

they want to establish self-confidence, and their success proves them right. meanwhile, the net of cap stores stretches over whole germany. 39 stores, most of them opened on the outskirts and with a free home delivery service, an offer which becomes more and more popular among the elder population.

exposure technique:

the photos were shot analogously with an olympus om 1 and a 50mm lens and an external exposure meter. the negatives were developed with the push method, underexposed with two aperture stops. the photos were finished digitally only slightly (bright/dark and contrast) and printed.

thanks to:

heidemarie von wedel

rüdiger scheestag

the staff of the cap market in obertürkheim