An illuminated view of climate change in Bangladesh
Written by Adam WestbrookYesterday in London I decided to get wonderfully lost. I had some hours to kill and so I started walking along the river not really caring where I ended up.
Where I ended up was the small but popular gallery beneath the OXO Tower, only 10 minutes from where I started. The building used to be a cold meat warehouse apparently, and a scene from the new Sherlock Holmes film is set there.
Today it’s the home of an exhibition by Photojournalist Peter Caton.
Peter’s produced a series of startling images from Bangladesh, what is fast becoming the frontline of climate change. His portraits of the people living with rising waters are rich in colour and powerful. What stands out is how Peter takes his pictures.
The British born photographer lugs a mobile lighting kit with him to produce a studio finish to his images. Who does that?
You can see the result of this in the picture above – it almost looks mocked up, but then you realise it isn’t in a studio at all; for me it meant the message of Peter’s images snuck in beneath the radar and made me think differently. A few too many of them follow the hackneyed tradition of having poor people stare like puppies into the camera. But a few – like the one above – remind us these people have dignity despite their terrifying situation.
If you’re in London I recommend you give the exhibition half an hour of your time. And of course Duckrabbit have returned from a reporting trip in Bangladesh too so expect more great photojournalism & multimedia from a story which really, really needs to be told.