Photographing in Bangladesh during the Coronavirus Pandemic
This post explores the personal and professional challenges of photographing people during difficult times like we’re in now with the coronavirus pandemic. Annie Tong, photographer and author of this post, reflects on her current travels and photography while in Bangladesh and working on her photography project The Everyday of Life.
— Share this Post —
In January of 2020 I packed up my work and my life and set out on a two year photography project travelling the world to shoot ‘The Everyday of Life’. I am hoping to challenge myself personally and professionally as I look for a more honest way to see the world and a more engaging way to photograph people.
Our ordinary, everyday life is something that we are all longing for these days. Photographing it for this project seems to have become a lot less significance for me in these past months.
Bogura City Bangladesh, March 19, 2020. — A husband and wife stand outside their home. Cargo trains run right through the city at its north end. A two-kilometre embankment elevates the tracks to shoulder height and lifts the rail cars even higher to where the lens of this camera has found the frame of this photograph. — This photograph is part of a series of photos on display at theeverydayoflife.com project website.
I am writing this post in the early summer of 2020, and it is now abundantly clear that the rise of the coronavirus pandemic has brought me far greater challenges than I ever anticipated: our ordinary, everyday life is something that we are all longing for these days, and the photography part of this project has become a lot less significance for me in these past months than it was when I started out. What I really want for ‘The Everyday of Life’ is just to be able to live it.
Here, now in the month of June, as Bangladesh begins to emerge from lockdown, I am able to leave my apartment and once again able to spend time outside engaging — carefully and respectfully — with the people around me. I am happy to be able to focused again on the everyday life around me, and trying to capture it in photographs for my project.
— The Coronavirus Pandemic Changed Everything in a Matter of Days—
I have been in Bangladesh since the first of February 2020. I am here with my partner in life, and we’re travelling together as I shoot this project. We explored Bangladesh with relative ease until early to mid- March. It wasn’t until then, the week of the 23rd, that the coronavirus pandemic felt like it had actually arrived here. When it did, it came hard and fast. In a matter of only a few days everything had changed, for everyone.
My plans seemed to change hourly. A photo shoot at the Brahmaputra river now seemed completely out of the question, and any kind of photography at all seemed wholly inappropriate.
A week or so before the lockdown we had travelled to the northern city of Bogura. My plan was to arrange for a photo shoot east of the city in the chars of the Brahmaputra river. The chars (pronounced chores) are essentially sand dunes that have naturally built up from the river’s silt to form small island neighbourhoods. I had not yet worked out any of the details on how to get there or conduct the shoot, but those kinds of arrangements are rarely possible to make ahead of time. Figuring them out was the first thing on my list of to-dos after finding a place to stay while in Bogura.
Bogura City Bangladesh, March 20, 2020. — Every morning this man buys fresh greens at the wholesale market to sell throughout the day. He sets up shop wherever foot traffic is steady, and he’ll work all day until everything is sold. His produce table is made of plastic bags and his chair is nothing more than a fine sense of balance. — This photograph is part of a series of photos on display at theeverydayoflife.com project website.
Within days after arriving in the city I noticed that people were less receptive than usual. This was the first time that I ever felt anything other than wholeheartedly welcomed. Up until now I had become used to be invited into people’s homes almost daily, for a meal or a cup of tea or just to meet the family. But now it seemed as though people were beginning to face the possibility that Bangladesh was not as immune from the pandemic as everyone had hoped.
— The Pandemic Made Any Photography Feel Wholly Inappropriate —
It took me a couple of days to finally realize it, but as a visitor to this city I was not a welcome sight. I stopped taking my camera with me as I went out into the streets, and within another day or two I was not even venturing far from the hotel. My plans seemed to change hourly. A photo shoot at the Brahmaputra river soon felt completely out of the question, and before long any kind of photography at all seemed wholly inappropriate. We began cycling through one alternative plan after another for where to go and what to do until it became clear to my partner and I that we needed to suspend our travels altogether and look for a place where we could hold up and stay safe.
South Dhaka under lockdown. — A view from the rooftop in south Dhaka during the nation-wide lockdown. Later in the evening as sunset approaches and the winds pick up, the sky above Dhaka city is cluttered with hundreds of ravens and at least as many kites.
Our best idea was to head back to Dhaka city to rent an apartment where we could isolate. We arrived in Dhaka on the 23rd of March and by the 25th all rail, air and road transportation was completely shut down. On March 26th the entire country went into full lockdown and was extended every two weeks and not lifted until May 30th, after Eid al-Fitre holiday. Eid al-Fitre is one of the most celebrated days in the Islamic calendar and marks the end of the Ramadan month of fasting.
There is no point in having a debate about whether or not I should even be here right now. If we had that debate, we could just as easily have one about what I’m doing here in the first place.
It is the middle of June as I write this post. Daily infection rates and deaths continue to rise and though Bangladesh is avoiding another nation-wide lockdown, it is shutting down individual neighbourhoods where infections have been identified. I have begun venturing outside the apartment for short walks to buy groceries from the outdoor food cart vendors. In recent days I have begun to carry my camera with me again but am hesitant to take photographs while there is still so much to worry about.
South Dhaka post lockdown. — A street vendor sells fresh mangoes and melons now in season. Most everyone wears a mask and practices safe social distancing wherever possible.
There is no point in having a debate about whether or not I should even be here right now. If we had that debate, we could just as easily have one about what I’m doing here in the first place; about how appropriate it is or isn’t for a well-off westerner to be traveling the streets of a developing nation where life is already unfair enough. Let’s leave that debate for another time but know at least that none of those arguments are lost on me.
— Photography of Everyday Life has Become Hard to Find in Bangladesh—
In case you’re reading this post out of context from my current work as a photographer, I am working on a two year photography project called The Everyday of Life and am travelling the world in hope to better understand and photograph it. That’s right, I am here in Bangladesh to photograph the everyday of life and my biggest concern right now is that I can’t seem to find it anymore.
South Dhaka post lockdown. — In Bangladesh very little goes to waste. Everything is reused and recycled many times over. This is a common recycling depot where bags and tins and bottles are manually sorted and then quickly handed off to the next group of workers to sort even further and move down the line. Without all this manual, independent labour, there would not be enough work for everyone. This recycling process may seem inefficient, but it’s practical and sustainable.
I am now a familiar face to most of the people in this south Dhaka neighbourhood. I’ve been here for three months and have been buying my fresh fruits and vegetables from the local street vendors just like everyone else. Whenever I travel to different parts of the world, for my photography or otherwise, I try my best to make myself seen in the neighbourhoods long before I reveal my camera to anyone. I don’t want anyone to ever feel that I am here only to take something from them. The act of taking a photograph can easily be mistaken for buying a souvenir, and the thought of treating people that way breaks my heart.
Today I am unmistakably out of place, not just because I am a privileged foreigner who can come and go as she pleases, but because everyday life has been completely turned up-side-down, people are struggling, and I am doing art.
At the best of times I look to engage with people long before ever talking about taking photographs. I don’t pretend that I really get to know anyone, or they me, but the truth of the matter should be obvious to everyone: the photography is a very distant second place to the reasons that I’ve come here. I know it and I try to make sure everyone else does too. But today is different. Today I am unmistakably out of place, not just because I am a privileged foreigner who can come and go as she pleases, but because everyday life has been completely turned up-side-down, people are struggling, and I am doing art.
South Dhaka post lockdown. — A man poses for his photograph while onlookers enjoy the scene.
— Photographing People as Subjects, not as Objects —
There is no escaping this conversation about exploitation. Nor should there be. As a photographer and a traveller, I must always think about the issues of exploitation and accept that there will never be a definitive or position that I can take every single time. There will never be a way to rule it out, never a way to guarantee that I am not guilty of something so terrible as this. I think that the only way to move forward is to constantly question myself, my objectives and my behaviour. (And I think this applies to us all.)
I am here to photograph people as subjects, not as objects, and I always await their invitation before taking a photograph or engaging in their lives.
You and I can both see now that this web post I’m writing has no real way of coming to an end. So how about if i just tell you what I believe and how I’m trying to behave, and we’ll leave it at that for today. — I believe that I have come here with good intentions that are supported by careful and deliberate actions to fulfill them. I am here to photograph people as subjects, not as objects, and I always await their invitation before taking a photograph or engaging in their lives. The hardest part about being here now — photographing in Bangladesh during the coronavirus pandemic — is that the everyday life that I am looking to capture in photographs is the same everyday life that everyone is longing for right now, and I have to make sure not to stand in their way.
— The Everyday of Life Photography Project —
This post has included photography from The Everyday of Life photography project. I invite you to visit my project website and enjoy the photo series from Bangladesh and other locations. I also invite you to visit and follow my Instagram posts @theeverydayoflife.
I don’t have commenting enabled on my posts, but if you’ve got something you want to tell me, there’s an email form at the bottom of the page and it would be good to hear from you.
