Munem Wasif’s Old Dhaka

I think the first time I wrote about Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif was five years ago, when he was one of the five from PDN’s Top Thirty ‘New and Emerging Photographers to watch’. Later in the year I commented when the Prix Pictet bankers selected  him for the commission to document WaterAid’s Chittagong Hill Tracts Project in Bangladesh, and a couple of years later there was another short post here linking to an interview on Lensculture and his work at Agence Vu.

Although I don’t ever seem  to feel now that I want to work in black and white again, I still appreciate great black and white images like those of Wasif. What brought him back to mind was Chaos and Harmony in Old Dhaka on the New York Times Lens blog, which has an audio slideshow of work from his new book, “Belongings,”  which “explores the rhythms of daily life in Old Dhaka” in which the photographer talks about the old city and his work.

He works with a remarkable simplicity of equipment, one camera, a 28mm lens and a bottle of water.  28mm was for many years my favourite lens too, though I’ve long abandoned working with a single lens. Perhaps I should try it again – and at the moment my back certainly thinks it would be a good idea.

The bi-lingual French/English book, ISBN: 978-2-9542266-1-3, is available in France, but does not yet seem to be on sale in the UK.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.