Photography Exhibition
Revelation of "First Light"
Fayza Haq
GMB Akash's career as a photojournalist began in 1996. He embarked into photography with his father's old Yashika FX3. In 1999 he saw an exhibition on AIDS patients called 'Positive Lifetime' and realised the power of images. Then he moved on to work on transvestites and sex workers. Right now he is working on ship-breakers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. He is also working on the subject of farmers. In the book First Light which was recently launched at the Bengal Gallery, are 26 pictures shot by him initially. "I took these pictures because they fascinated me," says Akash, "Nobody influenced me."In the picture First Light, taken at Sirajganj, we see a father taking his son to work in the fields. There is a figure in the distance which adds depth. In the next picture Challenge, taken at a railway station, Akash was amazed when a young soccer player broke away from his group and demanded to be photographed, indifferent to the jostling of his companions or the falling rain. Narayanganj depicts Akash's mother giving a bath to her sick and seated father-in-law, who has been bedridden for five years. He depicts the care that the elderly get in traditional families in Bangladesh. We see the bearded man in a lungi with water being poured from the top by his daughter-in-law. Another picture from Gaibandha shows how an owner of ducks gets on a banana raft, and looks around for her scattered ducks in the flooding waters. From Fatullah, Narayanganj, Akash gets the picture of a mother embracing her son despite the barrier of barbed wires. The mother was breaking bricks across the wire while her elder daughter was babysitting the son. Unmindful of the injury to her body by the barbed wire the mother proceeds to kiss her son. There is then the scene of a boy sleeping on the roadside with two pups tied to him. Powerful bonds are made from loneliness, hunger and need of protection. This was taken on a morning in Motijheel. Akash graduated with a BA in Photojournalism from Patshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography. In 2002 he was the first Bangladeshi to be elected for World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in Netherlands. In 2004 he received the Young Reporter's Award from Scope photo festival in Paris. In 2005 he was awarded 'Best in Show' at the Centre for Fine Art Photography's international competition in Colorado, USA. In creating the book, Akash had Laura Bonapace as the creative director and Reena Abraham as the writer.
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A moving photograph by Akash |
