The Guardians is an ongoing photo series by French photographer Vladimir Antaki, who says the project was born from his desire to, “document and pay tribute to these people, these guardians of urban temples that we meet everyday without really noticing.”
This is one interesting series to look at, You can see how all the cultures and all the nations around the world is served by their shopkeepers.
On his Behance project page, Antaki explains:
These places are sometimes magical, overloaded with elements, colours and stories, guarded by these characters who are sometimes touching, funny, quirky, and at times frightening. People pay less and less attention to their environment. They are always in a hurry, they don’t take the time to spend time with one another. Unfortunately, these places will one day no longer be around. This is one of the reasons that compelled me to want to document these ‘guardians’. So far, I’ve visited 9 cities (Montreal, New York, Las Vegas, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Beirut) and met nearly 250 Guardians.
Kudos to Vladimir Antaki