In the early 1980s, when this photograph was taken in Bombay (now Mumbai), the old world still survived with the changing and the emerging new world. Near Princess Street, this watch repairer worked from the small space of his shuttered kiosk. He must have spent his lifetime working there. Maybe his father sat in the repair kiosk before him?
A few years before, I had moved from Delhi to seek my fortune. The big city life attracted me, offered me opportunities to work in advertising and the film industry.
When not working on film sets or doing advertising jobs, I would wander the streets of south Bombay. It is during this period that I photographed the vibrant life of the city’s fringes, wandering amongst the eunuchs, prostitutes, opium dens, rag pickers or just the old world parts of the city. In that way I was a true documentary photographer then, though I worked at other crafts of photography to earn a living. Later I got sucked up into photojournalism, which took up so much time that it altered a lot of my work spheres. After a quarter of a century, I need to and want to go back to my roots in documentary photography.
Pablo Bartholomew. India
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About Shahidul Alam
I am a Bangladeshi photographer, writer and activist with a special interest in education, new media and ICT. I was a research tutor at London University where I obtained a PhD in organic chemistry before taking up photography as a profession. I am a former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society and set up the award winning Drik Picture Library. I also set up the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography and the DrikNews photo agency. I am the director of Chobi Mela the festival of photography in Asia.
My work has been shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Royal Albert Hall in London, Le centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. I have chaired the World Press Photo international jury. I am an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, a board member of the National Geographic Society and the Eugene Smith Foundation.
I am currently visiting professor of photography at the University of Sunderland. I have lectured at Harvard, UCLA and Stanford universities in the USA, Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and Universidade Eduaro Monldane in Mozambique and Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK. I was one of the Masters in the Joop Swart Masterclass organised by World Press Photo.
My new book “My Journey as a Witness” has been selected as one of the “Best Photo Books of 2011” by American Photo.
Your work is astounding, brother. May God bless you in all you do.
Ya Haqq!