On Rickshaw: "My Bangladesh" Photo Series (4)

“Every morning, I'll go out looking for colors.” (Cesare Pavese)

Dhaka, Bangladesh, 17 February 2020

Dhaka has different means of transport: various bus lines, rented cars and motorbikes, CNG vehicles (the little green motorized cages), and rickshaw. Given the terrible traffic, buses and cars are not very recommended. But with the other smaller and more agile way of transports, one takes all the smog.

My Rickshaw

Anyway, my favorite is rickshaw, because it's the only one that offers possibility to see the streets without obstacles, a little from above, and to be able to take photos, while being careful of the thieves who steal everything you have in hand .

Since the hours you spend stuck in traffic are long, I specialized in taking pictures from the rickshaw. After Street Photography, now Rickshaw Photography. Very often you have only one chance, and that makes it more exciting to stay glued to the seat for hours on end.

I took some of the most interesting photographs in this way. It is, however, a visual training. You have to look as fast as possible and be quick to set speed and brightness: sometimes you fail, sometimes you are lucky. This is the life.

On rickshaw stuck on traffic. Dhaka, 17 February 2020

From the first day in Dhaka, I noticed that this bus line circulated the city have the colors of Bangladesh flag, green and red. When I give my lessons of "Photography as Cultural Mediation" in Rome, I always repeat: if you don't opt for black and white, then color can become an added value. As Alex Webb writes: “I understand that color goes beyond color itself. Color is emotion.”

If you want to tell about a country, a people or a culture, it is important to know their reference colors, because they can add a new dimension to our photographs, emotionally or culturally.

Using yellow or its shades, for example, in photographing anything related to Thailand means shooting with the color of their beloved deceased King, and therefore it always excites the Thai who looks at our images. Or you can refer to colors of the flag. Therefore, I knew that the bus would be useful to me.

And so it was, one day, pedaling pedaling the rickshaw led me to a road where, from the opposite direction, this type of bus was arriving. Usually, given the high temperatures, the buses always have windows open. It's sufficient to see all the photos taken in these places by the great photographers with the faces of the passengers in the empty squares, a classic example to explain the natural frame in composition.

So every time I saw a bus, I tried to see inside every window, looking for interesting face or expression.

That day was hers, this girl with a tired or bored face. It took a moment, from far, to see and understand that I finally had what I was hoping and looking for. Incredible and perfect coincidence! The girl's veil and clothes were the same color as the bus, the colors of Bangladesh flag.

We crossed, on the sides of the two lanes of the road: one, two, three shots and she is gone; without ever realizing it, perhaps too tired and lost in her thoughts. Without knowing that she has become the symbol of her country.

I love colors also for this; and every morning I will go out on the streets looking for them.

Dhaka, 13 February 2020

Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb, Street photography e Immagine Poetica, (Postcart / Aperture, 2014)