Legendary photographer Anwar Hossain has recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the eight edition of Chobi Mela, Asia’s largest photography festival. Throughout his illustrious career as a photographer, cinematographer and a teacher, he made an extraordinary contribution in the field of photography in Bangladesh.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Anwar Hossain shared his experience about his professional journey.
“As we have love ones in our life, camera is my sole lover. I capture photos to convey messages. As in progress, I came to cinematography,” he said.
“The first day, the first role I took picture 8 frames and the last frame got me a National Award, where some ancient laundryman were drying their clothes in ancient style, a picture of struggling lifestyle in Bangladesh,” he said.
Coming back on photography and its future he becomes a bit quite and bursts out with sadness. He said: “I regret that there is no institution in Bangladesh where I can teach students with charm.
“It is my urge to build up a federation of photographers which is crying demand of this time. This will enhance and help to promote Bangladeshi photographers in international pages and a new era of branding Bangladesh will be under way. That is why I call for the unity of photographers,” Anwar Hossain said.
“A picture worth thousand words and picture never lies. So the duty of a photographer is to bring up the situation by the work in an honest way as possible than a revolution is bound to come. Humanity should be the top priority as he sighs a deep breath,” he said.
“Lets not only focus in marriage photography, modelling and so on. We have life, people, culture and nature. A vast sector is there to work. Photography should not be in a manageable way it should be done individually not depending on others so that it creates magic financially and socially. Its an art that resembles time at that particular time,”he concluded with a deep sigh.
