Rammy Narula talks with Enamul Kabir

Who are You? Tell us a bit about yourself. 

I am Md. Enamul Kabir from Bangladesh. I was born in the district of Narail, then grew up in a town called Kotchandpur, Jhinadah. It’s a small but beautiful town. Now I live and work in the capital city: Dhaka.

I wish I could leave my job and travel around the world. But you will not get everything that you wish for in one life. I believe it is very important to become a good human-being rather than attaining greatness as a photographer.

What was the trigger, or inspiration, that led to your taking up photography?

Never did I imagined that I’d be walking around with a camera, stopping at irregular intervals, snapping photos left and right. I never had any interest in photography.

At the end of 2012, I was unemployed and struggling to find a job. The local photography club used to make quite a lot of field trips. I’d tag along, visiting different places, mostly to kill time. I was actually hoping someone would take a good portrait of me that I could use that on my FB profile.

One fine evening on such a photo-walk, I took a snap with my phone, just for fun. The scene was so serene and beautiful that it grabbed my senses by the balls. Dr. Asim Saha, one of the nicest human beings I ever met, kept motivating me to take photos. Later, I met a photographer named Imtiaz Alam Beg, whose words inspired me to get behind the lens. Now, I can’t take my eye off the viewfinder, it seems.

What do you hope to communicate or describe with your work?

Truly speaking, I do not have any plans. Uniqueness is often referred to as style, which is something that comes naturally and cannot be forced. In photography, it is a personal statement. It is how one sees the world.

I enjoy taking photos. I go everywhere and shoot everything, from people to animals. A photograph can happen anywhere at any given moment. Sometimes it depends on my mood. I prefer the tranquillity of silence to crowded places.

I don’t allow the editor in my head to take the lead and instead let the photographer in me instinctively ‘feel’ the frame to freeze. It has been almost five years since I started shooting, and I still feel like a child who doesn’t know much about the world and find it an exciting place. 

I prefer my photos to be concise and cohesive. I try to achieve the best result possible with fewer subjects. You can call it a minimalist approach, although my photos usually aren’t minimalistic in the traditional sense. It is a practice of aligning and arranging the subjects and elements, instinctively, to arrive at a visual harmony.

I feel the urge to keep on learning and grow as a photographer. Good friends like Rammy Narula, Indrajit Khambe and many more around the world have helped me along the way by exchanging our views and thoughts on photography.

Has your relationship with photography changed over time, and if so, how?

Yes, it has changed. Like a child who keeps falling down yet stands up every time and learns how to walk, then run, swim, and ride a bike, my horizons have broadened over time. I began as a street photographer hunting for form and moments in individual images, then started working on specific themes and motifs. I like various types of photography, yet unposed candid moments are closer to my heart.

 Please select 5 of your photos and talk about how they came to be and how they reflect your working methods.

During the Chobimela festival of 2017, I noticed Dougie Wallace was moving around here, and without any hesitation I approached him for an artist talk under the banner of the Insight Collective, of which I was one of the founding members. During his talk, I learnt how to get really close to any animal. One evening, I was shooting at Beauty Boarding in Old Dhaka, one of the oldest gathering places of Bangladeshi artists. I noticed these two dogs. They were so adorable that I just could not resist myself to play with them. After a few minutes, they forgot about me, and I start shooting them from at a very close distance. I took 60+ photos and finally chose this one in the edit, which to me represents love and anger. 

I like intense weirdness. It was Eid time. Most Dhaka residents leave the city during the Eid vacation to celebrate with loved ones at their respective hometowns. Due to such a rush, a lot of the passengers travel on the rooftops of the trains. If one is lucky enough to get a seat reserved, it is an ordeal to reach the seat. This gentleman was waiting to enter the train, but couldn’t get to the door. I had my full camera gear on me, topped with the flash setup. He looked at me. I turned aside so that he can could feel comfortable with what he wanted to do. Suddenly, I turned around and started shooting. Sometimes, backs are not boring 😉. 

I was visiting an animal shelter in Naraynganj, a port city close to Dhaka, to interview the owner of the shelter. More than 40+ cats and 10+ dogs live there. Unfortunately, she was not there on that day, but I thought I should at least visit the place. I was moving around the house and entered her bedroom. The paintings, stickers, old photographs on the wall all attracted me. So, I was trying to take a photo of the wall to portray the place. Suddenly, the cat jumped from the top of the Almira, it was beyond my imagination. Each time I see this image, it reminds me of the photo of Dali. 

A good photo can happen anywhere, any time. You just need to feel it, see the photo coming and be ready to take the photo. I was traveling to a place called Kankavli in India with one of my very good friends, Indrajit Khambe. I love traveling through India. Kankavli is one of my most favorite places where I want to go again and again just to take in the fragrance of the grass, to enjoy the beauty of moonlight, and to hear the roar of the running water. Indrajit, Nitin, Abhijeet and I went swimming at the river. I was hesitant to get in the water as I don’t know how to swim. All on a sudden, Indrajit dove in. I ran to take the photo. This is one of my favorite photos as it reminds me of the place and shows the coexistence between humans and nature. 

I was heading out of Kankavli with my friends. We stopped for a break at Vengurla. Indrajit was buying fish for his family. We noticed the elephant beside the sea and start shooting. I probably took 35 photos there but was left unsatisfied, so, I left the place and started enjoying the sea view. Suddenly, I noticed the woman standing alone. I practically jumped in joy and started working the scene. I cannot explain it in details, but this image looks like a poem to me.

TC Lin talks with Forrest Walker

I had the good fortune to hang out and go shooting with Forrest Walker when he was in Taipei some time ago shooting as part of his 100 Cities project. He had some valuable insights, and was very helpful and generous with his time, meeting with my students and sharing his experiences. So I'm happy to present here a detailed interview I conducted with him in which he discusses his beginnings as a street photographer, his projects, and a sampling of his work and the stories behind the photographs.

Please tell us a bit about yourself. Where do you come from, and what or who inspired you to take up photography?

Hello, my name is Forrest Walker and I grew up in a small town on the Oregon Coast in the US, later moving to Portland, but now mostly moving around the world the last five years working on a large photography project focused on major cities. I wouldn’t say there was a specific what or who that inspired me to take up photography, but there were a sequence of events and people that influenced it indirectly. A mix of overcoming a health battle years ago, work, travel, ex-girlfriends and finding a “Magnum Tokyo” book in a small shop in Tokyo one afternoon all contributed to my obsession with photography today.

How does your photography reflect your personality/state of mind? What do you hope to communicate or describe with your work?

Maybe it reflects my wide variety of interests and curiosity of life. I like walking everywhere, exploring places and overcoming challenges that would deter others. My mind tends to see/think about many things at once and photography helps slow things down for me. This at least affects what and how I shoot. I’ve always been highly sensitive and turned off to anything fake, be it in people, art or entertainment, so the candid and unposed aspect is important to me and holds much more interest for me. That potential power of photography is what initially turned me on in the first place and I hope that comes across in my work, along with a sense of my imagination and curiosity. It’s a bit cliche to say after so many others, but a mix of real and surreal, but in my own way of how and what I see.

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In 2015, when I first started the project, I was living in Istanbul, Turkey, which is still easily one of my favorite cities. It actually ended up being the last one allowed, but back then, they somewhat allowed a Pride Parade. Due to Istanbul’s size and much of the surrounding countries/region not allowing anything like this, the one here attracted people from all over. It absolutely packed the streets all over where I lived near Taksim Square. It was crazy. Police were also everywhere and while they didn’t shut things down, they slowly kept pushing the crowds down the streets using tear gas. I took the photo below shortly after some tear gas caused the crowds to back up a bit from the line-up of police, leaving a moment of space. I noticed this woman dressed up in her strikingly unique outfit start to walk across in front of the police, paying them no mind. So I quickly ran up, kneeled down to create some separation from the background, took the photo, and moved on. Funny enough, years later, this woman contacted me on Instagram after seeing the photo shared and told me it was her and she loved it.

Your 100 Cities project is well known in the street photography community. How did you come up with this particular idea? How did you plan for it?

I was living in Istanbul finishing up some work there and had wanted to do something on a larger scale that hadn’t been done before. Something that would take years and full dedication, but could hopefully be put together into a work that was new. Over the course of the first 6 months, it grew into this project and has been my focus since.

I chose to focus on major cities for a variety of reasons. Many major cities don’t actually get photographed that much, while being filled with life and extremely important to the people, country, and history. I like how major cities connect to more people, even if they didn’t live there, they at least likely know it if they’re from the country or visited it. There’s a complexity to big cities, the variety of layers, diversity of people, scenery and life they contain. I also like how most people don’t understand why I’d photograph the big city instead of the picturesque little tourist town. There can be a negative connotation attached to big cities, but under that chaotic, not traditionally photogenic big city stereotype, there’s usually more interest to discover than anywhere else in the country, in my opinion. It just can be more of a challenge to find at first sight. Along with that challenge, there also can be more risks of photographing different areas, but that’s another reason many don’t get photographed as much, which also drew me. By covering major cities across over 75 countries and most major regions, I hoped to encompass the most variety of connections possible across the world, while finding the main connections we all share no matter the place, and put this together into work that would be much more than a just selection of favorite photos from different countries.

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Another one of my favorite cities for photography is Saint-Petersburg, Russia, especially in the Summer. During this time, due to their far north location, daylight lasts over 20 hours a day. They hold their “White Nights” festival during this time, which lasts weeks, but the main celebration is held the Saturday closest to the longest day of the year, which also combines with graduation celebrations. People start early and I was walking to the prime area where people watch the “Scarlet Sails” and firework show along the river. Unfortunately, the bridge I needed to cross was up in preparation for the sail boats, but I did take this photo above. Little did I know, an hour later, after walking to the next bridge, I’d be under water after being knocked into the river by a crowd of fighting drunk graduates (Long story). My camera was done for the day (it dried days later) and so was any photography of the event.

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I promised myself to return and photograph the “White Nights” event without any river swim, and the next year I did. Luckily, encountering much more peaceful graduation celebrates, like in this above photo.

Do you spend time just enjoying the places you visit, or do you go exclusively to take pictures?

Unfortunately, I rarely can spend time enjoying the places I visit, outside of photographing them. During each city, I spend every single day out photographing it as much as possible, and most nights I’m working on the computer. I know it’s nothing like people want to imagine it, but this project was never about travel fun and always about the photography and work. I treat it more serious than a job. But it’s not only due to my need to focus on the work. Fun and enjoying travel costs money, which I don’t have much of. So, I have to live by as low means as possible and pass up all that travel and tourist stuff for the most part.

Do you ever have issues photographing all of these vastly different cultures? Do you change your shooting style or practice in consideration of these different places and peoples?

That’s one of the biggest challenges, but also one that I really enjoy and focus on. Places and cultures do differ vastly, which does effect photography, especially when it comes to police and security. My goal has always been to tackle each place the same photographically, though, so I don’t change my shooting style. Fortunately, I can say there hasn’t been one place I feel I wasn’t able to shoot my way, only some were more challenging. If I’m in a more dangerous city or area, I’ve committed to the fact I have to take the added risks without compromising how I photograph. But if I’m in a place that reacts to photography differently, I have to find a way to work around that, while still shooting the same. Sometimes this means being even more observant of my surroundings and body language. But the largest difference in me would be how I interact with people and carry myself. Smiling and joking, but in a confident way, seems to work well for me in most of these places. If people feel that you are comfortable where you are and you give off a feeling of confidence and that you can be trusted, you’ll get treated much better and any trouble is more likely to leave you alone. There’s a big difference between shooting in many of the places I covered. Some places are more relaxing and comfortable for photography than others, but I’ll admit the more challenging ones can provide more satisfaction and memories with the people.

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While covering Mumbai, I got up extra early one day to catch the sunrise and morning exercisers along Marine Drive, one of my favorite spots in the city. After walking it back and forth, unfortunately not much interest had been out there that particular morning. As I was walking towards its end, I saw a nicely dressed man enjoying some relaxation by the sea. This isn’t an uncommon sight, but as I walked by, I saw how at this angle it created this clean illusion.

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Coincidently, this next shot was taken less than 20 minutes after the last, providing 2 of my favorite photos of that year in less than half an hour. Almost makes up for the other 364 days worth of minutes that didn’t produce those results.

Has your relationship with photography changed over time, in particular the course of this project, and if so, how?

Honestly, It did get to a level of obsession that isn’t healthy or good for anyone. Over the last five years working on the project, I’ve been completely devoted to photography to an unreal degree. I had to give up all I had, from possessions, money and relationships to health, happiness and safety, over the course of it all. And every single day was on the streets photographing, while living out of a bag by the lowest means possible and trying to make just enough money to keep it going. Sanity and depression and health has been a struggle over the course of it, so I am happy to be done with the photography part of the project now, even though the actual photography part I never tired of. It was just everything else that had to go along with it. My obsession with photography can’t go away, but I’ll need to add other parts of my life back and find some sort of balance. I’d say when it comes to photography, though, I do see things differently than when I started the project just from the experience of seeing so many different things. And some things don’t interest as much as they did at the start, while some interest me more.

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I was covering New York City during 4th of July so I decided to spend the full holiday shooting around Coney Island, one of my favorite spots anyway, but even better during the 4th. After shooting from Coney to Manhattan Beach, I was walking back through Brighton Beach when up far ahead I saw a photo that immediately stopped my eyes and grabbed me. The type of unique scene from life showcasing what makes it all so beautifully unique and interesting, without any tricks. I had to make a photo of it. Not being a complex photo to make, the focus was only to make it at the right timing before it or the feeling changed and disappeared forever. The group of women were all waiting in line together, but noticeably all separate in their look and body language. They were full of individual character, while displaying a collection of attire. My only focus and worry in shots like this is getting close enough without disrupting the scene and making the photo before anything changes, a balancing act of moving quickly but natural, timing and luck. Fortunately, I got this one off at the right time, putting the camera to my eye and clicking the shutter in stride, just as I passed.

Have you been influenced by other photographers? If so, who?
Plenty. Looking at great work by others has been my favorite inspiration and teacher. Before each city, I always check the Magnum Photos archive for that city, among other photo searches. Discovering Magnum was my first serious influence so that’s where most of it can probably be found. Some specific names from there would be Alex Webb, Constantine Manos, Harry Gruyaert, Gueorgui Pinkhassov, David Alan Harvey, Bruno Barbey, Richard Kalvar, Bruce Gilden, Josef Koudelka and Carolyn Drake. Outside of Magnum, I’m also a big fan of Helen Levitt, Joel Meyerowitz, Tony Ray Jones, Lars Tunbjork, Cristobal Hara and Jason Eskenazi, among others. I like to look at a lot of work for influence and inspiration, but without getting too focused on one style or photographer.

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The next photo I made in London Fields park. I like this area around Hackney and was walking the park on a somewhat quiet day when I saw this older woman playing goalie for her grandson. Obviously, a funny scene you don’t see every day, I had to go in and take a photo. I didn’t want anything unnatural or posed so I just went up and started taking photos in a way where they didn’t pay me much mind. I took a few photos catching the free kick at different timings. Sometimes she got there, sometimes she didn’t, like above, but it was all fun to watch and shoot.

You studied business in school and worked for a time as an office worker. How did you make the rather radical pivot into this project? Have you done other types of photography, and how did that go?

I’ve done a variety of photography work, without sticking with much of it for long until I found the type of work I shoot now. Headshots, weddings, some fashion work for a period, a few ads, and then documentary work, which was the one thing I truly enjoyed, and led to this project. As for the radical transition, I did save up money from my previous job for over a year in and sold most of my belongings in plans of making the jump, but it still was a big leap into a completely different world.

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Halloween in Tokyo has become one of my favorite events to photograph. I’ve gone the last few years after discovering the surprising degree that they celebrate it here, especially in Shibuya. It’s crazy. So crazy, that last year the city upped the police force with a 100 million yen budget just for it. While you can see locals dressing up throughout the week, the day of Halloween is the biggest celebration, going throughout the night around Shibuya’s streets. While the street activity is still a sight to see, I made this photo below before they cracked down more on alcohol consumption and street parties. While most photographers of the event are standing at corners taking photos of all the costumes, I like to get involved and in the mix. So, I dress up in a costume and try to get into some real scenes. Here in this small parking lot, they had a dj blasting music, alcohol flowing and all types of costumed partiers stopping to dance. At this point of the night, the police had had enough though and they shut it down, which helped create the unusual scene above. And fortunately I was right there in the middle of it all.

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The major cities in Sub-Saharan Africa don’t get photographed too often, especially when it comes to street photography. There are a number of challenges compared to most other places, but I wanted to focus on cities everywhere, as equally as possible so I made sure to cover some of Africa’s biggest cities. Accra was one of my favorites. It wasn’t always easy, mostly due to daily police and security guard hassle around the more local neighborhoods, but I loved the life. Bukom was one of those places I loved here. While near Jamestown, one of the few areas visited by tourists in Accra, you’ll only see local life in Bukom. For me, it was the most interesting part of Accra, filled with a vibrant and authentic local life that poured out onto the streets. I came here more than anywhere and on this day I noticed this child walking with a yellow box on her head. Bukom is a colorfully painted neighborhood, especially when it comes to their national colors, so it provided a nice color match of yellows. I tried to time things to connect a few layers of life along with the colors, got up close and made the photo above.

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Lima has become one of my favorite big cities for photography in South America. I grew up on the coast and I love to photograph cities on the sea. Not only do I enjoy the atmosphere of walking along the ocean, but I also enjoy the life they attract. The Miraflores district of Lima has one of those atmospheres that will get me out shooting as much as I can. Along the beaches below, you have the beach activity you’d expect, especially on weekends, along with a strong surfing culture. What makes Miraflores even more special is how it’s situated just above the ocean, with some really nice parks stretching along the cliff that connects below. You get miles of beach and park life right by each other, all with that picturesque view and atmosphere. In the photo below, I noticed this couple with matching white pants, which could create an interesting look at a particular angle. I’m also attracted to themes of love and people connecting in street photography, so I liked how it all could be combined here. Along with that Miraflores setting.

You can see Forrest's work on Instagram and his website

The Nature of the conversation

I recently had the chance to pick up Alec Soth’s I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating at the Moom Bookshop off Zhongxiao East Road in Taipei. They were having a small show based on color photographers such as Shore, Gruyaert and Eggleston, so naturally I had to go. I spent hours just looking through the books on display there, especially my favorite from Shore, Uncommon Places. This time around I particularly noticed the apparent care shown in the editing and sequencing of the book. Shore’s later works haven’t resonated with me as much, a phenomenon I’ve observed with many well-known photographers.

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As for Soth’s latest book, whose title comes from a line in the Wallace Stevens poem Gray Room, the work conveys connection and empathy in a way I haven’t felt since his first book, Sleeping by the Mississippi, which I’ve always loved. There is one portrait in his new book that doesn’t have the same power as the rest. It is of a woman seen in the gap between bookshelves. All of the other photos in the book resonate and inspire a wealth of stories, but this one feels…out of place. After I’d finished looking at the photographs, I read the text, and this turned out to include a fascinating interview with Soth on how the book came to be. The interview was conducted by Hanya Yanagihara, whom I recognized as being the woman in the incongruous photo.

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Interested, I asked Alec about it on IG, trying to be as diplomatic as possible: “The photo of Hanya didn’t seem to belong, and then I realized she was the one you talked with.” I wondered if there was connection between the two. “Am I imagining things?”

“Not at all,” he wrote back. We then went on to discuss the content of the book, specifically the part about connection. Soth, who is about my age, approaching 50, had a moment of clarity a few years ago in Finland, a sudden realization that “everything is connected” and subsequently reevaluated his approach not just to photography, but to dealing with people. He has said that one of the main challenges he faced as he began to engage in photography was his innate shyness, effectively equalizing or even giving more power to those he was photographing than he felt he had in the exchange. Over the years, as his fame grew, the nature of the relationship with his subjects changed; he was an internationally renowned artist, successful author and exhibitionist, a member of Magnum, the world’s most prestigious photography agency. But as his status was changing, so did the work he was doing. His “Ah-ha!” moment redefined his connection with people, his respect for his subjects, and it has seemingly made a real difference.

I’ve long wondered how so many famous photographers start out strong, with real, emotive work, and then lose that in the latter stages of their careers. The prevailing wisdom has simply been that people lose the creative spark as they get older, but reading about Soth’s experience and seeing the resulting work following his revelation makes me think something else is at play, mainly, the nature of the connection between the photographer and the subject. Soth compares it to that of two people on a seesaw.

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In some circles, such as street photography, many -too many- photographers seem to assume a posture of domination and even objectification of their subjects, eagerly grabbing as much power in the relationship as they can. The reason for this might lie in the toxic mixture of social media and gadget worship that has infected the genre, which I’ve written about elsewhere, and might go a long way to explaining the spiritual paucity of much of this kind of photography. Ego, it seems, is the enemy of sensitivity, of pathos, of connection. It places blinkers on us, blinding us to all of the potential of being open to the world on an equal basis, substituting our vanity instead.

The photographers I most admire, however, tend to take a more respectful and curious approach to the subjects of their work, at least in making the work that brought them to my attention. Respect for the subjects of one’s work is also something I try to instill in my own students.

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These changes in the nature of the connection with the subject might be why some photographers’ work changes as they gain fame and influence. The very nature of the relationship with subjects changes, the balance shifts, and the connection is fundamentally altered. Take an open-minded, curious photographer and stick them in a famous agency, give them interviews and assignments and minders and entourages and fans dogging their every step, looking to see what wondrous magical composition they’re going to create next, and that connection become all the more tenuous. Be they a failed art student wandering the streets of Paris, or shy man in his 30’s following the path of the river that flows through his country, the lifeblood of their work is intense observation free of the pollution of ego that so often comes to obscures our vision. Judgement threatens observation, and the whole thing can break down. For some, the only way to deal with such developments may be to abandon photography in favor of another art form. Others may move to more abstract work. And some may be hit, perhaps while on a flight to Helsinki, by the realization that they cannot relinquish the very essence of their work…the knowledge that everyone is connected.

“Your thoughts have made me see things in a different light, thank you,” I wrote Soth following our exchange.

He responded: “You’ve also given me something to reflect on. Thank you.”

by TC Lin