There is something profound about the way a photo book can connect with our hearts. A great many photo books are compelling. They betray injustice. They celebrate landscape. They revel in intimate moments. They make a point we need to hear. But a subset of the compelling would be those which are, for lack of a better term, infectious.

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Ave Pildas – “Africatown: Sunday Market, Leimert Park, Los Angeles”
Published by The Pildas / Green Foundation in 2026
Review by W. Scott Olsen

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I mean this in the most positive way. They are infectious with their humor, or their quirkiness, or their point of view. Not only do we take pleasure in viewing them; when we put the book away, back on the coffee table or on the shelf, and head out to the grocery store, we’re still thinking about it. The book gets into our head, not as an argument or proposition, but as something with a bit more life.

Africatown: Sunday Market, Leimert Park, Los Angeles, by Ave Pildas is infectious. It’s infectious with its sense of community, with its sense of happiness, with its celebration of a weekly event and its insistent, present-on-every-page sense of joy.

As the title says, Africatown is a collection of portraits taken at the Sunday Market at Leimert Park in Los Angeles, over several years. These are not candid street shots. These are not unguarded moments caught surreptitiously by a photographer lurking in the shadows. Every one of these images is a portrait and a conversation between Pildas and the subject. They are not so much posed the way a portrait photographer might construct body language, or an art director might supply a costume, as much as they are paused. I can imagine Pildas saying, “You look great. Stand there for a second. Let me take your picture.” The images seem both honest and proud.

The colors in this book leap off the page. The colors of the clothing, the colors of the walls, the colors of the street. And while there are some stern pictures in the collection, there isn’t a single unhappy, morose, angry, or resentful image. These people are dancing and singing and alive and smiling. These people seem to be aware of their community as well as personal identity, and once again, the sense of joy is irrepressible.

You look great. Stand there for a second. Let me take your picture.

Other than the title of the book, there is little text to tell any viewer what they’re looking at when they begin, although there is a brief epigraph or dedication, in which Pildes writes, “Dedicated to all the new friends I made over the past two years who helped me create these photographs. Be blessed.”

So we begin with a sense of friendship and blessedness.

Immediately after that, there is a poem by Father Amde Hamilton, poet and priest, titled “Leimert Park In and Out.” The last stanza of the poem reads—

Permanent fixtures pictures that can be seen deep
within my bloodshot eyes memories blurred some
clear far or near some gone some still Here
People be in and out
World only see what In let Out

Let’s repeat that last line: World only see what In let Out. This book is what the world sees. This is what these people are letting out from their inside, and what they are letting out, at least to my eyes, is joy.

At the very end of the book, it says there is a brief afterward; there is this bit of text as well—

But when I show up the following week with a color print for them to keep, they are surprised and grateful, oftentimes, wanting to pay me. I tell them I don’t do this for money, and I always ask what they have to trade instead. As a result, in exchange for my photos, I have received salmon tamales, a BBQ plate, T-shirts, hats, bundles of sage, weed, a beard trim, jewelry, and best of all, mutual respect.

There’s the book, folks.

Africatown also holds a wonderful afterword by Ibarionex Perello, which offers some context for Leimert Park—

In my youth, Leimert Park was a rich cultural center for music, poetry, food, art, and community at a time when so few such spaces existed in South Los Angeles, especially in neighborhoods that were routinely overlooked or misunderstood. It was a cultural oasis in the community that was underserved, yet deeply alive with creativity and resilience…

Ave Pildas’ photographs of the Sunday African Marketplace capture the modern story of Leimert Park with a quiet intimacy that feels both honest and deeply respectful. He does not exoticize the people or the space, nor does he turn the scene into a spectacle. Instead, his photographs are grounded in presence, in relationship, and in a genuine attentiveness to the humanity of his subjects. These portraits feel collaborative rather than extractive, shaped by trust rather than observation from a distance.

Africatown is a community, yet it is not a closed system. You don’t need to be part of the club to understand what’s going on here. Whether it’s a marching band, street musicians, market people, or simply people out for a stroll, every image is not so much a performance as it is a confident affirmation of yes, this is me.

The images are without captions, without names, yet there is an index in the back where thumbnails are reproduced, and we learn the names of the people in the portraits. The result of this is that, while perusing the book, we are most interested in the emotion of the portrait, the pride, and the joy. If this is what the In let Out, then what is In is remarkable and beautiful.

Each portrait is vibrant. Pildas is an extraordinary photographer, and his very early work with jazz portraits, I believe, gave him a sense of that emotive moment when somebody is expressing an inner truth. His lens has been pointed to street photography for some time, though, and while it’s difficult to take a street portrait and have it achieve something both larger and deeper than a snapshot, his street photography finds that way into something more real every time.

Africatown is infectious. Infectious with joy. It’s the kind of book you open, and very quickly start thinking, “I wish I was there.”

A note from FRAMES: Please let us know if you have an upcoming or recently published photography book.