Photography

Latest story

63 Shares149 Views

Portraits of Kolkata’s Rickshaw Pullers

by

It was still dark when I met Mohammed near the central market in Kolkata, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. He and two other men were piling dozens of enormous jute bags into the carriage of his black-and-red rickshaw — supplies, he said, to be delivered around the city.For Mohammed, it was just the beginning of a long day’s work.A rickshaw puller from the neighboring state of Bihar.Kolkata is among the only places in India — and one of the few left in the world — where fleets of hand-pulled rickshaws still ply the streets.The men who operate them are called rickshaw wallahs. (Wallah is a term for someone who carries or procures something.) Some pull their rickshaws more than 10 miles a day while carrying several hundred pounds — the combined weight of the rickshaw and a couple of occupants. Their daily wages often equate to a few dollars.A set of idle rickshaws in the early morning.My job as a photojournalist involves a lot of travel, and I’ve become quite good at acclimatizing to new places. These days, it’s difficult for me to feel culturally disoriented, or dépaysé, as we say in French — literally “out of one’s country.”Yet Kolkata, which I visited in 2018 while on scholarship for a photography workshop, left me with a welcome sense of cultural dislocation. The saris, the sounds of the Bengali language, the smells of the spice markets, the thick monsoon air: All of it contributed to my sense of disorientation in this dense, river delta city of more than 14 million residents. And so, too, did the sight of the rickshaw wallahs, who, often barefoot, pulled their passengers through the crowded streets.Mohammad pulls a group of children to school.Rickshaw wallahs don’t earn a living serving tourists. Their clientele consists mainly of local Kolkatans: shoppers coming to and from markets, or residents transiting the city’s narrow side streets. Schoolchildren, picked up at home and dropped at school every day, often represent a steady income. If someone is sick at night, a rickshaw will do just as well as an ambulance.And when monsoon rains fall, usually between May and September, rickshaws — pulled through waist-deep water — can provide transportation to places that motorized vehicles cannot reach.Rickshaws in the downtown area of Kolkata.During the height of India’s Covid crisis, in April and May, many rickshaw wallahs provided an invaluable service, shuttling patients to and from clinics and hospitals. Others were forced to leave Kolkata and return to their home villages during the lockdown. (In many places in India and elsewhere, the pandemic has led to a mass exodus of migrant laborers.)A rickshaw puller adjusts his vehicle before the start of his workday.Two passengers and their cargo near a market.Rickshaw wallahs don’t earn a living serving tourists. Their clientele consists mainly of local Kolkatans.Over the years, human rights groups and governing authorities have tried to curb the use of hand-pulled rickshaws, which some see as a degrading colonial anachronism. Local authorities officially banned the vehicles in 2006 and have stopped issuing or renewing licenses, while promising that the government would offer training for alternative livelihoods.But for the hundreds, if not thousands, of pullers who remain (some estimates place the number of remaining rickshaw wallahs at between 500, some at 5,000), rickshaws are often their only reliable source of income.A rickshaw puller washes his clothes at a public fountain.Not all of the men I met were willing to have their pictures taken. Some wondered what good it would do. But others, like Mohammed, were eager to share their stories.One young man described his frustration with the police, who, on occasion, issue fines, confiscate rickshaws or demand bribes. “They know where we are and where we work,” he told me. “They just do it for the money — and then we have to earn it back.”Two rickshaw pullers sleep on mats on the street.Many rickshaw pullers are migrants from the neighboring state of Bihar. With the exception of the meager funds they keep for their daily needs, they send much of what they earn home to their families.Over the years, human rights groups and governing authorities have tried to curb the use of hand-pulled rickshaws, which some see as a degrading colonial anachronism.Bihar has one of the lowest literacy rates in all India. In fact, none of the men I met knew how to read or write.But Mohammed took pride in telling me that his children in Bihar are attending school.“All of them,” he added with a candid smile, “thanks to the money I’m sending.”After we talked, I watched as he bent down to pick up his set of handles and walked away. Before long, all I could see was the black patch of his rickshaw vanishing around a corner.Emilienne Malfatto is a photojournalist and writer based in Iraq and Southern Europe. You can follow her work on Instagram and Twitter.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. More

More stories

  • 138 Shares119 Views

    in Economy

    The Faces of Mothers Who Bore the Burden of the Pandemic

    by

    For a business article on the price that working moms paid, a photographer couldn’t take portraits in person. But shooting them remotely led to a different connection.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.As a freelance photographer, I was contacted by The New York Times in February to create a series of portraits of 15 mothers in Los Angeles who had been forced out of their jobs because of the pandemic.I had become a mother during the pandemic, so this story struck a particular chord with me. I had lost some work as the coronavirus shut down the country, and it scared me to begin motherhood while record numbers of women were leaving the work force.As soon as I had my heart set on taking the assignment, my editor, Crista Chapman, and I realized this would be difficult to execute. I was working in Florida for a few months and would need at least a week in California, and my doctor advised against being away from my breastfeeding infant for multiple days. Also, Los Angeles County was just beginning to recover from a devastating wave of Covid-19, so the initial plan for me to photograph everyone at their homes or in an open studio space was scrapped.I thought I was going to have to pass on the assignment all together, which felt particularly ironic. But I didn’t want to give up, so I decided to get creative and pitched remote portrait sessions with the women. I knew these might be a little trickier because all of our subjects were busy moms without a lot of time to deal with technology. So, to ensure I could pull this off, I did a practice session with my sister-in-law and her kids. I could use those images as a step-by-step guide for all the sessions, and Crista signed off on the idea.I emailed and called each woman with the general plan for the photo shoot and then jumped right into the work.I set up a video call, usually with my daughter on my lap, so a different kind of intimacy was quickly developed. We could relate to each other as mothers, which broke any awkwardness that might be felt from FaceTiming with a stranger. My daughter would giggle, their child would shove a stuffed animal on camera, and we would share stories about what we had been through over the past year.While we chatted, I would have each woman take me on a tour of her space and show me anything that reminded her of life before Covid. This typically took about 30 minutes while I figured out lighting and composition. Once we decided on the space, I would have her set her camera up on whatever she could find — a chair, bookshelf, laptop stand or kitchen table. Then I would have her sit with her kids.The women would set up the camera while I gave directions. Sometimes I had a child, husband or translator hold the phone and help me out. I was always clicking the capture button.A big part of my process is watching body language and documenting, with minimal direction, how people occupy space. To create organic, intimate images that tell a story, I usually have to share physical space with the people I photograph. So, remote shoots introduced a totally new dynamic.I typically work to create images with a sense of familiarity and closeness, and by creating remote photos this way, I was able to go (virtually) into these women’s homes and capture their daily life with their children in a new way, creating really intimate portraits that were much more immediate than they would have been had we done the photos in person as planned.I wanted to capture the feeling many of us have experienced communicating with family and friends through our phones and computers this past year, and this approach provided a different level of engagement.Since the shoot, I’ve continued working while raising our daughter. I think of those women often and wonder how they all feel as life in Los Angeles is opening back up. I don’t take for granted the work that I’ve gotten, and I hope we all collectively remember the women who are still at home, still taking care of the kids with their lives on hold. More

  • 138 Shares199 Views

    in Economy

    Mozambique Mints a New National Park — and Surveys Its Riches

    by

    When you stand in the Chimanimani Mountains, it’s difficult to reconcile their present serenity with their beleaguered past. From the valleys below, enormous walls of gray stone rise above dense deciduous forests. Hidden among various crevices are ancient rock paintings, made in the late Stone Age by the San people, also known as Bushmen; they depict dancing men and women, and hunting parties chasing after elephants. There’s even a painting of a crocodile so enormous that it may forever deter you from the riverbank.As you climb higher, toward Mount Binga, Mozambique’s highest peak, the forests flatten into expanses of montane grasslands. Wild, isolated, lost in time, it’s a place where rich local traditions live on, where people still talk about ancestral spirits and sacred rituals. A local guide there once told me about a sacred mountain, Nhamabombe, where rainmakers still go to make rain.A local guide crosses the Rio Mussapa at dusk.Ancient rock art made by the San people, or Bushmen.It’s not everyday that a country with a past rife with war and environmental destruction fulfills an ambitious conservation goal. But that’s exactly what happened last year in Mozambique when, after overhauling its environmental code, the country officially designated Chimanimani as a new national park.Rain clouds move in as the sun sets, casting the valley in an otherworldly glow.Mozambique has seen its share of heartache, and Chimanimani is no exception. After the country gained independence from Portuguese colonizers in 1975, it was plunged into civil war. As many as one million Mozambicans died. So, too, did untold numbers of wild animals, which were hunted for their meat or whose parts were traded for weapons.The Chimanimani Mountains became a frontline, and their mountain passes became transits for guerrilla soldiers during both the Rhodesian Bush War, which lasted from 1964 until 1979, and the Mozambican Civil War, which stretched from 1977 until 1992.Victor Américo, a student in the master’s program in conservation biology for Mozambican students at Gorongosa National Park, sets a mist net to capture bats.Callie Gesmundo and Zak Pohlen, two ornithologists, pull mites from the feathers of a red-capped robin-chat. The mites were sent to a specialist for further study. (The pair has already contributed to the discovery of a new mite species.)Located on the Zimbabwe border about 90 miles southwest of Gorongosa, Mozambique’s most famous national park, Chimanimani National Park marks the latest triumph in an environmental renaissance for a country where, just 30 years ago, armies were still funding wars with the blood of poached wildlife.Jorge Manuel Machinga, a ranger, leads two botanists, Bart Wursten and Petra Ballings, back to camp. Mr. Wursten has done nearly a dozen field expeditions in the area — and “I still keep finding new species of plants; new to me, new to the region and even occasionally new to science,” he said.Across the country, Mozambique’s national parks authority, the National Administration of Conservation Areas, is working with private partners to bolster wildlife numbers and restore ecosystem function. The most prominent projects are in Gorongosa National Park. More

  • 88 Shares159 Views

    in Economy

    Drought and Abundance in the Mesopotamian Marshes

    by

    On my most recent visit to the Mesopotamian marshes, in March, I arrived at Sayeed Hitham’s for breakfast. The pandemic had kept me away for more than a year.The sun was just rising, the sky pink and golden. Hana, Hitham’s wife, stood smiling near the door to their reed house. “Tea is ready, bread is ready,” she said. “Come on in.”We sat on the worn-out carpet around a glowing kerosene heater, sipping tea and dipping the flat naan Hana had just baked into hot buffalo milk. “What took you so long, Emi?” Sayeed asked with a tone of reproach. “We haven’t seen you in forever.”A woman floats past a mudhif, a traditional house made of reeds.Water buffaloes in the Central Marsh, one of three main areas in the Mesopotamian marshes.Indeed. A year was the longest I’d gone without visiting the Mesopotamian marshes since I began documenting the area in late 2016.At that time, when journalists and photographers were flocking to the north of Iraq, where the battle for Mosul was raging, I took the opposite path and headed south. I was in search of another view of the country, something different from the war I’d been covering for the previous year and a half.A fisherwoman at work in the Hammar Marsh.It was a moment of real discovery for me — one of those few times when you connect with a place, with a people.A fisherman casts his net in the Euphrates River, between the Central Marsh and the Hammar Marsh.Fishermen in the Central Marsh.The Mesopotamian marshes, a series of wetlands that sit near Iraq’s southeast border, feel like an oasis in the middle of the desert — which they are. The ruins of the ancient Sumerian cities of Ur, Uruk and Eridu are close at hand. The broader region, known as the cradle of civilization, saw early developments in writing, architecture and complex society.Iraq’s Central Marsh.The marshes are home to a people called the Ma’dan, also known as the Marsh Arabs, who live deep in the wetlands, mostly as buffalo breeders in isolated settlements, a majority of which are reachable only by boat. Others live in small cities on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates rivers, which feed the marshes.Many of the Ma’dan left decades ago, when the marshes were ravaged by war, famine and repression.A Ma’dan with water buffaloes in the Central Marsh.Ma’dan children milking buffaloes at dawn.During the Iran-Iraq war, waged between 1980 and 1988, the wetland’s proximity to the Iranian border turned the area into a conflict zone, a theater for bloody battles. Later, in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of a Shiite uprising against his Baath Party, Saddam Hussein intentionally drained the region — where many of the Shiite rebels had fled — as a punishment and a way to stifle the insurrection.The marshes turned into a desert for more than a decade, until the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.A boy carries reeds across the railway that passes through the marshes between Baghdad and Basra.The Central Marsh, as a sandstorm approaches. In the background is a village that was destroyed by Saddam Hussein’s regime during the 1990s.By then, damage had already been done. By the early 2000s, less than 10 percent of the area’s original wetland existed as a functioning marshland.A woman leads her water buffaloes.Today, after being re-flooded and partially restored, the marshes are once again endangered — by climate change, lack of ecological awareness on a local level and, perhaps most dramatically, by the construction of dams in Turkey and Syria and upriver in Iraq.Fishing with electricity, as these men are doing, is quite common in the marshes. The electricity kills everything within a few feet and can harm the ecosystem.The cultivation of reeds, which are used to build homes, is a key element of Ma’dan culture.In 2018, an extremely hot summer followed by a lack of rain caused a serious drought. In some areas, the water level fell by more than three feet.Once largely drained, the Mesopotamian Marshes have since been reflooded and partially restored.A man fishes at night on the Euphrates.“That’s it,” I remember thinking, as the small boat crossed the marsh where corpses of young buffaloes floated in the water. Buffalo breeders like Sayeed Hitham lost about a third of their livestock, and many had to leave when areas turned into a desert. They migrated to neighboring cities — or farther still, to the poor suburbs of Karbala, Basra or Baghdad.During a period of severe drought, a child, Zaineb, plays with a relative while her uncle, Sayeed Aqeel, watches.Fatma, at age 2, tries to kiss a young buffalo.But then, a few months later, the water began to rise. People returned. I photographed the renewal, just as I’d photographed drought the year before. But it felt then — it still feels now — like a sword of Damocles hung over the region.A family in the Hammar Marsh.The stakes are high, both ecologically and for the people who live here. If the already-depleted marshes dry up again, the Ma’dan may have no choice but to leave, to cast away from a peaceful enclave into a troubled land.Two children — Inas, on the left, and Baneen, on the right — sit in their house during the month of Muharram.Children sleep outside under a mosquito net.Still, I’ve kept coming back. Over the years, I’ve seen drought and abundance, freezing winters and burning summers. I’ve seen children born, and watched them grow up. I’ve followed Sayeed Hitham and his family as they moved around the marsh, the location of their new home dependent on the water level — and each time built out of reeds.Oum Hanin laughs inside her little home in the Hammar Marsh. She lives alone with her buffaloes.I’ve even gotten used to the huge water buffaloes, known locally as jamous, which represent the main source of income for most of the Ma’dan.The buffaloes scared me at the beginning. But I’ve learned to walk through a herd of horns, to let them smell me, to pet the fluffy, friendly calves — the ones that try to lick my hand like oversized dogs.A teenager milks the family’s water buffaloes at dawn. Known locally as jamous, water buffaloes are often the only source of income for Ma’dan families, who sell the animals’ milk in the nearby towns.Dawn in the Central Marsh.When I outlined my progress to Sayeed, as we wrapped up breakfast, he burst into his wonderful, exuberant laughter. “You still know nothing, Emi,” he said. “You can’t even tell the mean jamous in the herd.”Then, serious, and still smiling, he said: “It’s OK. You have time to learn.”Emilienne Malfatto is a photojournalist and writer based in Iraq and Southern Europe. You can follow her work on Instagram and Twitter.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. More

  • 113 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    Photographer Captures Economic Impact of Covid on New York

    by

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutGuidelines After VaccinationAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderA City Strapped: Photographing a New York in NeedThe pandemic shattered the city’s economy, affecting people’s homes, livelihoods and wallets. One photojournalist documented the hardships, as both a lament and a tribute.Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, last September.Credit…Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesMarch 10, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Last year, as the coronavirus began spreading in New York, I worked closely with Renee Melides, a photo editor on the Business desk, on a photo essay that visualized the city as it became a global epicenter of the pandemic. When that piece was just a concept and life still seemed somewhat normal, the two of us sat over a coffee. To this day, it’s the only time I’ve had an editor green light an idea mid-pitch.“Yes,” Renee said, interrupting me. “Do it. Now.” And I walked outside and started photographing.Back then, anxiety and uncertainty dominated New York, and when the story ran, it led with an image of a man praying during a meal in a Greenwich Village McDonald’s.With that story published, I pulled back from daily assignments as a freelance photographer in an attempt to understand the virus, as well as the risks that my family and I faced. I never stopped working, though. Instead, I moved through many parts of New York on long daily runs. Nine miles out, nine miles back. I’d pass through different neighborhoods, assessing and acknowledging changes by shooting on my iPhone.For a while, the pictures were mostly empty streets, ambulances and those frightening freezer truck morgues. Then the spring surge abated and people started emerging, and the vulnerabilities of our city, exposed by the virus, became more apparent than ever. I would post images to my Instagram account, unsure of what else to do with them or even what I was trying to say.I could see that inequality had become more pronounced, observing the rich and the needy forced to share the same sidewalks. I watched as stores closed down on street corners one by one until nothing but “For Rent” signs remained, and I found myself stunned as I moved through parts of the city that were once thronged by tourists but were now empty. One day in Times Square, as I sat waiting for a pedestrian to pass through a composition I had made, it was quiet enough for me to hear the sounds of the traffic lights changing.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

  • 100 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    The Fate and Fortunes of the Fashion-Adjacent Economy

    by

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Fate and Fortunes of the Fashion-Adjacent EconomyInfluencers and street-style photographers changed the fashion ecosystem, creating an entirely new way of selling fantasy. Then came a pandemic.Paris Fashion Week 2018, when scrums of street-style photographers were part of the everyday scene.Credit…Acielle Tanbetova for The New York TimesElizabeth Paton and Dec. 21, 2020Tamu McPherson, one of the original street-style stars and a former editor of Grazia Italia, has 319,000 followers on Instagram. For years, many have watched her pose in immaculately styled outfits at runway shows, glittery parties and on vacation. During the fashion weeks in September 2019, Ms. McPherson, who was born in Jamaica and lives now in Milan, flew to New York and back four times to produce content for her Rolodex of clients, which include the jewelry brand Bulgari, the fashion label Etro and the fast-fashion retailer Mango.In 2020, the jet-setting stopped.“I haven’t been on a plane since March,” Ms. McPherson said this month. During the pandemic’s first lockdown, all of her brand partnerships were put on hold. For months she waited, uncertain of what might happen next. But in May, the phone started to ring again. Since then, it hasn’t stopped.“There is so much work coming in, and I know it is the same for many of my peers,” Ms. McPherson said. “The key difference is we don’t travel the world for our jobs anymore. Most of what we do is now being done from our living rooms.”In the last decade, a booming economy adjacent to the fashion industry has emerged. Largely powered by social media, it is made up of careers such as high-end fashion influencing and street-style photography. As companies increasingly look for new ways to reach customers, a growing coterie of these professionals has come to stand toe-to-toe with the traditional fashion elite, like magazine editors and photographers and stylists. Like so many, their livelihoods were derailed when the pandemic hit. But unlike other corners of the fashion industry still struggling to recover, some operators within the fashion-adjacent ecosystem say that, for them, business has never been better.The podcaster, consultant and writer Camille Charriere during Paris Fashion Week in September.Credit…Christian Vierig/Getty Images“It’s been my best year yet in terms of income and projects,” said Camille Charriere, a Parisienne in London with one million Instagram followers who is also a podcaster, consultant and writer. One reason for the influencers’ resilience is their relatively low overheads and production requirements — often as simple as a smartphone and ring light — which have allowed many to pivot nimbly to working from home. Lavish international photo shoots and red carpet events are still not feasible for most brands.Instead of continuing to channel those dollars into more traditional advertising mediums, like print magazines or billboard campaigns, many companies are focusing their spending on partnerships with influencers, who offer faster turnaround times, versatile messaging options and real-time product demonstrations.“We are very used to working alone and turning the camera onto ourselves to share personal experiences,” Ms. Charriere said. “The pandemic didn’t change that.” Still, she conceded that creating digital content with partner brands had become more “stage-managed” in recent years. There is a need for heightened sensitivity from both parties.Selling a slice of fantasy, particularly at a time when people are re-evaluating their moral relationship with consumption, has its dangers. Her focus is now on creating uplifting or relatable posts with a more homespun D.I.Y. feel — even if her content still hinges on outfits from Prada, Dior and Chanel. But this hasn’t been a very difficult transition; her more successful posts have always been her more personal posts.“What we provide is an intimatized sense of interaction with our way of living, whether that is at fashion weeks, eating toast or going to the grocery store,” Ms. Charriere said. “I didn’t cover fashion weeks, I covered myself going to fashion week, and that’s what I think my followers find interesting to see.”The Sidewalk EconomyBefore the pandemic, fashion weeks in February and September represented the most lucrative time of the year for both these high-fashion influencers and the photographers devoted to capturing them on the street — hired by publications and brands to capture the fashionable people filling seats at the fashion shows.But September was a different story. This fall, there were smaller shows and fewer heaving crowds of showgoers hovering on the sidewalks of Paris, Milan, London and New York “looking for their cars.”“In Paris, which is normally the busiest — you’re running to shows from the morning until the evening — some days there was literally just one physical show,” said the photographer Darrel Hunter, who is based in London and has been shooting fashion weeks since 2008.The Coronavirus Outbreak More