Taking dirty pictures is my job

Newspaper photography is a grind on more occasions than it is glamorous.

If there’s one thing my professional visits to drains and cess-pits has taught me, is respect for those who wallow in them every day

It was during one of my morning walks that I overheard two 40-somethings yabbering on, between rasping breathlessness, about how media photographers have a field day shooting celebrities day in, day out.
But, it got me thinking…do most readers share this sentiment? If they do, then I have to set the record straight. Newspaper photography is a grind on more occasions than it is glamorous (if it ever is).
Recently, during the tragic incident of the young Abhishek who was swept away in a storm water drain, DNA’s photographers had to get down and dirty in a storm water drain in order to convey to readers the dimensions of these uncovered dangers.
Later, after a daring robbery, the same photographers clambered down a narrow hole — used by the thieves — to bring the derring-do of the act into focus. Apart from our grossly under-appreciated conservancy workers and intrepid fire-fighters most Bangaloreans would baulk at the idea of clambering into a stench-ridden canal of slime, but for photographers it’s just another day on the job.
The thing is, the images that these forays into the garbage-filled underbelly of the city provide are not exception — rather, they are the rule. Following the BBMP around as it makes its circuitous course of the city — above and below ground — doing and at times, shirking its job of keeping the city hygienic is a photographer’s job, for most of the time. After all if you don’t walk by their side, how will you be there to document it when they fail.
Which brings me back to the two ‘dialectics’ pondering the ‘glorious job’ of the city’s news photographers. To simply stand by and listen to their ill-informed opinions was far beyond my natural instinct. So I walked up to them, introduced myself, and told them that I too was a photographer.
I asked one of the men what he would do if he had the misfortune of living or working next to an overflowing sewer or a pile of uncleared garbage. He told me he would go to the nearest civic office and request the authorities to clear it up. And if that failed? I asked. Well, he said, then he would go higher deeper into the bureaucratic labyrinth. And if that too met with failure? He would then go to his local newspaper, so that they could highlight the issue.
I smiled and told him that in order to highlight the issue at hand, the newspaper would first need a photograph of the errant stick-pile, and that brought us right back to the ‘glamour boys and girls’. Dirt and delving into it, I told him, is part of a photographer’s life. Celebrities and hip parties were merely the sideshow.
If there’s one thing my professional visits to drains and cess-pits has taught me, is respect for those who wallow in them every day, out of compulsion, rather than choice. Our conservancy workers get no bylines for their job. They don’t complain about the sorry lack of equipment, and they are rarely recognised by the people they serve, which is you and I.
So although I may love to correct someone’s facts, I also know that there are those who can’t. And this column, more than anything else, is a salute to those brave souls.