Saiful Huq Omi: Interview

Screen Capture Courtesy World Press Photo

Saiful Huq Omi is a Bangladeshi photojournalist, whose photos appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Time and Asian Photography, among others. His work has been exhibited in galleries from Zimbabwe and Russia to Japan and his home country. He received a number of awards, including the All Roads National Geographic Award, and an emerging photographers grant from the Open Society Institute.

I thought his recent interview with the World Press Photo ** was one of the most honest I've seen in a long time. Saiful Huq spoke candidly, and tells his interlocutor something which resonates with many emerging photographers in the world...

"...the world has seen us through the eyes of white photographers from the west.."

Well said, Saiful Huq! That's true, but these days are now gone, never to return. It's now the time for local photographers to show us their cultures, their countries and their creativity...as indeed you and many others like you have already done...and will continue to do.

His Rohingya project gained him a grant from the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund. He is represented by Polaris Images, and published his first photo book, Heroes Never Die - Tales of Political Violence in Bangladesh, in 2006.

** (The direct link may redirect you to the main World Press photo website. If so, you'll have to navigate to its multimedia library and then to "Meet its Participants")

Via Duckrabbit.

Posted in: Interviews,Photographers: Photojournalists