Ship Building And Repair Yards Part 2

Posted: 29 Oct 2011 01:48 AM PDT The ship building yards have always seems to reveal the most random situations and experiences each time I visit this place. The environment is constantly changing and my reasons for returning each time are more out of curiosity than anything. I am not trying to focus on any social stigma, human exploitation, or anything along those lines in these images. This is a place where people come to work so they can support their families just like everyone else in the working world. Each time I return, I am ALWAYS welcomed with generous smiles, a friendly cup of cha (tea), and eager workers pulling me into the most intriguing and intimate areas. It is an interesting place filled with many amazing experience and photographic opportunities that I thoroughly enjoy and one I will keep coming back to.

I thought I would keep this post short as I know in the past a have made everyone do a lot of reading. I hope you enjoy the images and thank-you again for all the support!!

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Cheers,

Jeremy

Gulshan 1 & 2

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 03:24 AM PDT Over the past few weeks I have been working on a series in Dhaka photographing beggars that frequent an area called Gulshan One and Two. Gulshan is the major banking sector in Dhaka where some of the wealthiest people live and do their business. Gulshan One and Two are completely separate areas each having their own major intersection where shops, banks, markets, and street stands surround the intersection circle where many beggars congregate.

The traffic in Dhaka is a REAL PROBLEM and that is an understatement. To give you a comparison, I traveled by local bus from Saderghat to Banani which is about 12km. Now in any western city to cover this sort of distance should only take maybe 30-45 minutes on a bad day. Now imagine 2.5 hours… and that’s EVERYDAY in Dhaka. It gets even worse during Ramadan where it took on several occasions 1.5 hours to travel 3 km.  You ask why don’t I walk… after those instances, I now do.

The reason I bring up the traffic is because when traffic builds up; which is a ALL the time, these beggars in the street capitalize on the traffic situation; especially in the wealthy areas which allows them to walk between the cars hitting up about 40 cars in a single session before the light turns green.

These beggars work in teams using any possible way to make a quick buck selling everything from balloons, stickers, maps, and even using elderly people to gain the sympathy card.  You will also see beggars with severe deformities begging from the side of the road trying to get money from any person who walks by. Some of these beggars are on their own, some are homeless, and surprisingly some even go to school. I was shocked when I met 11 year old Rubina who attends school during the day but comes to Gulshan two begging for money at night from 4pm-10pm. When I asked why, she responded by saying ” Dad has no work and Mum is gone, I need to take care of dad, he is sick”.

Everyone that begs in Gulshan has a similar story. I met Irene who has three children and her husband works as a rickshaw driver. She recently was arrested because the police started cracking down on the majority of people begging in Gulshan One and Two circle and Irene now stays at home until the police situations begins to calms down.

In this series I’m trying to photograph the contrast between the rich and the poor. I want to capture each individuals personality where their situation in life does not hinder the energy that comes across in each photograph.

Thanks for reading…

Cheers-> Jeremy

Irene and one of her two sons.

Rubina begging on the streets.

Johnny and Kobita.

Childs Play In Dhaka

Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:03 AM PDT With VERY FEW affordable hotel and hostel options available in Dhaka I have currently been residing in an apartment the entire time in Bangladesh. Using Dhaka as my main hub, this allows me to travel throughout the country taking ONLY what I need for either day trips or to add a little more to the pack when I venture out to the remote rural areas for weeks on end. Just outside where I live now,  lies one of the major road systems in Dhaka (Airport Road) which gives me a huge advantage to access any area of the city by local bus or CNG (Google it).

Across Airport Road lies one of the rail lines that runs through Dhaka where one of my previous excursions brought me to the roof of a Bangladeshi train and from that quick tour through Dhaka, I saw some very intriguing and interesting areas. From that little stunt I decided it would be a good idea to walk that same rail line at a walking pace to see what types of images I could capture.

This particular day turned out to be an interesting one where sub-consciously I was photographing children the entire day. Occasionally I would photograph an adult but for every adult I photographed I had 40 children captured. It was a very playful day filled with laughs, children climbing all over me, instructing the proper techniques of giving high fives (VERY IMPORTANT), and many screams of excitement when a child can see his or her photographs on a little black box. These are the days that I love what I do and just life in general. When you yourself become a kid you get grounded, you realize not to take yourself and everything else so stupidly seriously. Open your eyes, slow down, smile, have some fun, and go for walk. It’s amazing what can find when you just walk.

Ship Building and Repair Yards

Posted: 17 Sep 2011 06:28 AM PDT Bangladesh has some pretty incredible places to explore  when you really take the time to just walk. Everywhere I look on a daily basis I am constantly exposed the most interesting situations, people, things, and mentalities I have ever witnessed. What might seem backwards, foreign, or completely out of this world what the “cuss” just happened to most people,  it’s one of those places where you need to constantly remind yourself to just take a step back and look past all the chaos. Usually when people hear the word “Bangladesh” they usually think of flooding, poverty, and the garment industry. As I said earlier, there are so many interesting things about this country and the working force here is probably at the top of list for most interesting particularly the shipping industry and how these ships are built, repaired and recycled. Now if you have never heard of the ship breaking yards of Chittagong you need to Google it and check it out. The Chittagong ship breaking yards are probably one of the hardest places right now to gain access to and photograph due to the exploitation of workers both adults and children, working conditions, health hazards, structural hazards, wages, and the list goes on. I am still trying to get access to the Chittagong breaking yards, but I need to get a visa extension before I commit as it’s taking more time than I thought. But as that is on hold right now, so until then, and with some luck, I have discovered and decided to photograph the ship building and repair yards in Old Dhaka.

After being here two months I have already encountered on several occasions minor difficulties getting access in to a few areas, however being granted access to the ship building and repair yards was like Christmas. One morning I woke up at 5am and headed towards old Dhaka just like you run downstairs to open your presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Arriving at 6am I started to wonder through the yards. When the first worker noticed me, it was a frenzy of smiles, broken English and Bengali from both sides and employees, engineers, and managers eagerly wanting to have cha (tea) with me. After a few laughs, multiple handshakes, simple hand gestures and 74 liters of cha later, anyone and everyone eagerly granted me complete freedom to photograph wherever and whatever I wanted.

This is a start to a new series and I hope you like the little taste I’m about to give you in this blog post.

Thank-you again for following and if you have questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Another Day in Bangladesh

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 12:01 AM PDT Over the last two weeks it has been a roller-coaster of emotions, opportunities, and exhaustion. I have been traveling for five months now and in these last two weeks it has been extremely difficult to find ANY motivation to actually pick up my camera. I have been moody, irritable, and had absolutely no drive whatsoever. I had started to burn out and it was hindering the relationships with subjects, my stories and all this negative energy was starting to show in my photographs. To say that I am happy with what I have captured so far would not be true. There is always a need for improvement where you can always push yourself to go harder, longer, and NEVER stop shooting. I am perfectionist, but as humans unfortunately we are not built like robots to function 24/7. Sometimes we need to step back, relax, have a cold beer and get just put the camera down and get away from it all.

When I thought I was going to literally beat myself with my 70-200 lens, a few friends invited me to join them for a day trip to Old Dhaka where I would give them a photography lesson. Wanting to hone my skills as a photography teacher where in the near future I plan to pursue, I quickly packed my gear and we all jumped in the car and headed down to Sadarghat. Now, I know I said earlier to put the camera down and step back, unfortunately I have found out that  just doesn’t work for me…HAHAHA. Now I won’t get into any major details of the day but it was just any other day with no expectations, deadlines, or pressure. The weather was beautiful and our day consisted of checking out the Pink Palace, eating local cuisine on the street, hiring a wooden row boat where we cruised through the Buriganga river, and lots of picture taking. A GREAT day that was filled with great people, a surge of inspiration (photos coming soon), and to finish….a cold beer at the end of it.

In this blog entry you will see images from all parts of Dhaka. I will be posting TWO more blog entires over the next week sharing two stories that I have started to cover so stay posted and I hope you enjoy them. Also earlier in the blog entry I quickly mentioned opportnites so I just wanted to say a quick thank-you to Lisa who hired me to go to Sierra Leone, Africa for seven days departing September 17th, 2011 documenting a HUGE event where 10,000 pairs of crutches will be handed out to amputee victims of the civil war that took place between 1991-2002 http://www.thepeaceproject.com/. Also a HUGE THANK-YOU out to City Style & Living Magazine for the AWESOME spread in their Fall issue… Check it out Page 8, 34, 41, 42, 43 http://www.nxtbook.com/dawson/ksmedia/citystyleandliving-fall11/#/42

Thank-you to everyone who has followed me this far, for ALL your support, the beautiful words, the comments, the e-mails, and for just being awesome an genuine people.

Stay tuned over the next week as I can’t wait to share two possible stories that I hope to leave you thinking and wanting more.

Cheers and have an EPIC day!!

Jeremy

This photo was taken in the slums that are located along the rail lines throughout Dhaka. His teeth are black because some Bengali's believe it better to clean your teeth with coal rather than toothpaste.

Local boys playing a game called Carrom in the slums along the rail lines in Dhaka.

A Bengali Boy poses for me in the slums located along the rail lines in Dhaka. He lost his leg being hit by a bus 2 years ago.

A Bengali woman sifts through coal and other chemicals to birthday cake sparklers.

Riding the tops of trains. The best view in the house is free.

Riding the tops of trains. The best view in the house is free.

An older Bengali who eagerly wanted his photograph taken, but as soon as I pulled my camera to my eyes all I got was a straight and serious face. As soon as he saw the photograph he burst into laughter... I missed that shot unfortunately.