Over the past couple of months, Agence France-Presse photographers have been finding and photographing people who hold job titles that are becoming very rare, such as lamplighter, street clerk, rickshaw puller, plowman, or elevator attendant. On May Day, these portraits provide a glimpse of a wide array of jobs that are vanishing under the pressures of automation, inexpensive mass production, and other technological and societal changes. Here are photos from workshops, street stalls, farms, cathedrals, darkrooms, and DVD stores, illustrating how technology has ushered in rapid changes to the services and products available worldwide.
Images of Disappearing Jobs
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Iain Bell, a gas lamplighter engineer from British Gas, inspects a gas lamp in Westminster, central London, on April 24, 2018. 1,500 gas lamps, some of which are 200 years old, continue to light some secret and beautiful corners of the British capital, and are maintained by hand by a five-person team, supervised by the engineer Iain Bell. #
Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP / Getty -
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Mohammad Ashgar, 65, an Indian rickshaw puller, poses next to his rickshaw in Kolkata on April 21, 2018. A mainstay of 19th-century transportation options, the hand-pulled rickshaw survives in India only in Kolkata, after being outlawed elsewhere. The local pullers' union puts the number of pullers in the city at 3,000. The union has resisted all previous attempts to ban their livelihood, previously organizing mass protests of their members against moves to stamp out the practice. #
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Wu Chi-kai demonstrates how to make a neon sign during an interview with AFP in Hong Kong on April 16, 2018. The neon sign maker Wu Chi-kai is one of the last remaining craftsmen of his kind in Hong Kong, a city where darkness never really falls thanks to the 24-hour glow of a myriad of lights. #
Philip Fong / AFP / Getty -
A neon sign maker, Wu Chi-kai, poses during an interview with AFP in Hong Kong on April 16, 2018. Changes in local regulations and newer, cheaper lighting alternatives are causing a sharp decline in the neon-sign business. #
Philip Fong / AFP / Getty -
Mohammad Joynal, a Bangladeshi ear cleaner, poses for a picture on a street where he works to clean the ears of patients in Dhaka, on April 24, 2018. Commercially produced cotton buds that are cheap and easily available are destroying the livelihoods of ear cleaners in Bangladesh, one of the signature features of street life in the densely populated South Asian country. #
Munir Uz Zaman / AFP / Getty -
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The Bulgarian bookbinder Kalin Daskalov, also known as Stopan, works on the cover of a new book in his workshop in Sofia on April 24, 2018. Daskalov makes books and journals with a strong reverence for traditional bookbinding techniques. #
Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty -
The plowman Carlos Acosta, 43, works in a field with a yoke of oxen at the village of San Jose de Soroguara, 20 kilometers north of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on April 16, 2018. #
Orlando Sierra / AFP / Getty -
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Syed Ahmed, 50, an Indian owner and operator of a letterpress printing machine, poses in his shop in the old quarters of New Delhi on April 23, 2018. There are only five other such letterpress operators in New Delhi, according to Ahmed, who says he is the last one in his family working in the tradition. The letterpress printing technique grew out of the original printing-press machine invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century, and remained in wide use into the 20th century for book printing and newspaper production. It is becoming a dying art after being overtaken by digital replacements. #
Chandan Khanna / AFP / Getty -
Dennis Randall, the "yard boss" for the Baltimore Arabbers on Fremont Avenue, tacks a horse as he prepares the bridle in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 13, 2018. Randall's Yard Boss position, one of the only remaining such positions in Baltimore, makes him the caretaker of the animals in the yard, as well as an assistant to other arabbers preparing for their day. Arabbers are street vendors selling fruits and vegetables from a colorful, horse-drawn cart. Once a common sight in American East Coast cities, only a handful of arabbers still walk the streets of Baltimore, relying on street cries to attract the attention of their customers. #
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty -
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Mario Olavo Campanha, 36, the owner of a video-rental store, poses for pictures at his shop in Lapa neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on April 20, 2018. Two years ago, Mario bought the store from his employer after noticing there were unfulfilled demands in the lower middle-class neighborhood, especially from the elderly, who didn't keep up with the advancing technology and prefer his advice when choosing movies. #
Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty -
The Japanese tatami maker, Hiroshi Yanai, works on a tatami mat in his workshop in Tokyo on April 19, 2018. In Tokyo, Yanai is among the few craftsmen still making tatami mats by hand, as demand declines in Japan and Chinese machines take over the job. #
Behrouz Mehri / AFP / Getty -
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The Mexican image restorer Salvador Alejandro Casas, 66, works with an airbrush at his workshop in Mexico City on April 21, 2018. Casas is one of the four image retouchers who still work in the historic center of Mexico City. #
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The Bulgarian camera repairwoman Vessela Draganova holds an analog camera in her small camera-repair shop in Sofia on April 24, 2018. Draganova has been repairing cameras for 48 years, and she is one of the last specialists who have been repairing analog cameras in Bulgaria. #
Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty -
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Candelaria Pinilla, a street clerk, poses in Bogota on April 9, 2018. Street clerks are experts in filling out forms such as property tax, vehicle tax, withholding tax, and income-tax returns. In addition, they carry out petition rights, sworn statements, and even letters. #
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Nenan Jovanov, 70, sprays a customer with perfume in his 64-year-old perfume shop in Belgrade, Serbia, on April 19, 2018. Nenad literally grew up in this "time capsule" shop as the third generation in the family business. Nenad says, "There used to be 23 perfume shops of this kind in Belgrade; now I am the only one left." #
Andrej Isakovic / AFP / Getty -
Dilson Lopes Santana, 60, an elevator operator, stands in an elevator doorway in the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center (CCBB Rio) in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on April 18, 2018. Dilson, a resident of the Cantagalo favela, who has been working at the CCBB Rio for 25 years, is also an amateur marathon runner and dancer. For him, it has been 25 years of bringing the best of the city's culture to visitors, to whom, whenever possible, he offers suggestions as they visit the exhibition rooms, the theaters, and the library — all connected by the elevators he operates. #
Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty -
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Jose David Farrier, 44, a brickmaker, poses in a brickyard in Armenia, El Salvador, about 40 kilometers west of San Salvador, on April 26, 2018. Herrera, who has been working as a brickmaker for 20 years, receives about $50 a week for his work. #
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Dragan Dragas, 70, repairs a watch in his five-decade-old watchmaker repair shop in Belgrade on April 23, 2018. Dragan learned his watchmaking craftsmanship from his father, who opened this shop in 1956. #
Andrej Isakovic / AFP / Getty -
The Ecuadorean washerwoman Delia Veloz, 74, in the municipal laundry of the Ermita neighborhood, in Quito, on March 5, 2018. Veloz has been a washerwoman for over 50 years, and earns around four dollars a day. #
Rodrigo Buendia / AFP / Getty -
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Fabio Garnero, one of the last gnomonists (builders of sundials) in Italy, poses for a picture in a Renaissance mansion, where he restores an ancient sundial on April 17, 2018, in Saluzzo, near Turin. Garnero is one of the last gnomonists in Italy who uses traditional techniques to calculate and draw the sundial on the buildings. He spends a lot of time cataloguing and restoring ancient sundials in Italy and in Europe. #
Marco Bertorello / AFP / Getty
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