On-going project..

Rohingya refugees live at an unregistered refugee camp at Kutupalong near Cox's Bazar, a southern coastal district about 300 kilometers south of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Myanmar only find themselves trapped in international limbo.

As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar and as foreigners, they are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh.

Toxic Fashion

Laborers work at a sandblasting plant outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Manual sandblasting was recently banned in Turkey after it was discovered that it led to 40 deaths. Without the use of proper face protection, manual sandblasting can lead to silicosis by the inhalation of the silica dust in sand.

Manual sandblasting has long been banned many European countries and the United States. The textile industry is Bangladesh's number one export earner and employs over 2.2 million workers.


Please see the full take here

I'm writing this post for the third time, from Dhaka, Bangaldesh. Everytime I finish uploading pictures the power goes out and I have to start all over again.

It's been a long time since I posted. After Jharia I stopped for few days in New Delhi to relax and regroup, then took a week to travel to Cox's Bazar, the tip of Bangladesh that borders Myanmar, stopping along the way in Calcutta and Dhaka. I started to shoot a project for a few days and then was called to Chittagong to work on something else.

I'm feeling a little burned out from all the goingoinggoing, train bus train boat bus boat, but I'm loving this country. In India the first question I am asked on the street is, "are you single?" here in Bangladesh it's "what do you do? what is your degree?". For all the poverty that exists here, it's clear that the people want to work harder for something more. There are billboards up everywhere, even in the most rural places I've been, advertisting for schools, universities, tutoring, all kinds of education. There are over 17 daily newspapers in this tiny country. The friendness and hospitality of the people (especially coming from New York City) caught me off guard and is something I've never experienced anywhere else. I arrived at the bus station in Dhaka to find everything written in Bengali, wandered around looking lost, and a wonderful little family plucked my ticket out of my hand, directed me to the bus and even helped me book a room a hotel when we arrived.

Here are a just a few snapshots from the past weeks, since I'm still mid-shoot on two different projects. A sort of 'state fair' in Chittagong, my first England vs Bangladesh cricket match, and a little traffic in Dhaka.

"The sun rises over Bokahapadi Village in Jharia, Jharrkhand, India, February 18, 2010. Women and children as young as 5 years old scavenge daily at the open and underground mines Jharia. The coal fields here were once used by companies, but then abandoned. The coal was exposed to the atmosphere, ignited, and underground fires spread across the towns. Locals in Jharia live over dozens of these underground coal fires that pump out toxic fumes and form fire pits that have led to several deaths and collapsed homes. They work alongside the fires, breathing fumes for up to 9 hours a day. The coal they collect earns them around $1 a day at the local markets. With coal scavengering a primary source of income for many residents, a proposed government relocation of residents is being met with resistance. Coal supplies 70% of India’s energy and the largest concentration of the country’s coal fields are in Jharrkhand."

Please view the entire project here

I spent a total of 11 hours on the train to and from Calcutta yesterday to get permission to shoot for a project I'm working on in Dhanbad, only to get all the way there and find out the director I needed to speak with wasn't in. It's been three weeks here in India now and I'm trying to keep a zen and open mind, but there are a few things to get used to, like Indian bathrooms, hygiene, trains, queues (or lack thereof), being constantly stared at and followed around by stunned people and children when I shoot. Every once and a while I find my New York anger boiling up but it's clear that my western middle class frame of mind simply won't work for me here. For all my bitching I have to give credit, just when I feel ready to throw up my hands in frustration something seems to pop up and give me exactly what I need.

More Kumbh Mela

'Livin' my life like it's golden'

I was feeling a little down today after having both cameras break (thankfully I can still shoot with one if I give it a good smack every few minutes) and getting harassed by an overly suspicious lady cop yesterday; so today I decided to take the day off, sleep in, and wander around town doing the tourist thing.

This place is breathtaking. I've been waking up before dawn every morning and walking through the fog for nearly a half mile to the main Ghats and watching the faithful bathe in the icy waters of the Ganges as the sun rises, it's clear that this is an incredibly important, spiritual experience for them.

Maybe having my 5D's die was a blessing in disguise; a sign telling me to ditch the cameras for a while and have a look around. Just the other day, I spoke with a photojournalist from France that I met here who was doing just that: putting down his cameras for a few months at a time to just enjoy traveling the world. We agreed that while you're busy shooting behind the lens, it's far too easy to get caught up in taking the right shots and forget to experience what's around you.

This break from New York is something I've needed for a while. Working for a daily newspaper every day in the city, I got caught up in the routine of my assignments, becoming just another member of the hustle and bustle and dizzying blur of trying to keep up as a working professional within the city. Eventually, I burned myself out, and had forgot why I got into this profession in the first place. Now, halfway across the world at the base of the Himalayas, I think I am finally starting to remember.