Arise ye workers, a photo from Dhaka, North

Photographer's Note

A communist demonstration passing through the narrow streets of old Dhaka in December 1972, maybe providing some hope for a better future for a crippled beggar watching them pass by.
Bangladesh was only one year old and there was a lot of political turbulence in the new-born nation, a lot of expectations of what independence would bring.
On this day not only communists were marching through the capital. In another part of the city an islamic party held a major manifestation.
Still they shared the common goal of creating something better for Bangladesh. This was before the rival parties had started taking out their frustrations at unfulfilled dreams on each other.
This was scanned from a Kodachrome slide.

Gessle, dareco, saxo042, fanni, noborders, scroller has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Gessle (70) 2008-10-30 1:58

Hejsan Gert!
This is an incredible thing to participate in creating something new - and creating a new nation is something that does not happen every day.
Great picture - the legs of a sitting man are so thin...
Fantastic note!
A good reporter...
Halsningar, Anna

dareco (17134) 2008-10-30 2:06

You really have lived a very interesting life seeing many things! Nice job and informative as well. Good pov. TFS

fanni (13868) 2008-10-30 2:25

Hej Gert,
the photo is a good historical ducument! Well, the process of demonstrations of people fighting for or expecting a better future seems to be an eternal repetitive process..

Concerning the photo (if any critique concerning the quality is appropriate in this case): good composition (the crippled man in the FG is a good balance for it); the colours are as bright as these people's emotions, I would say!
Too bad the faces look a bit too dark (it would be interesting to see their facial expressions more clearly) but ... as it's a scanned image I guess in this case not much could be done about it.
kind regards,
Elena

saxo042 (31802) 2008-10-30 2:26

Hej Gert,
Interesting picture and good composition, but the light conditions here must have been very hard to handle. Is it the sky in the background or a big white wall?
Hälsningar
Gunnar

Waylim (22357) 2008-10-31 0:15

Gert,
Such a heart broken scene, though it seem hopeful but it didn't help. The party does have good intention but the whole things is not working for anyone, it chase the rich away and it leave the poors poorer. Sad. I have seen this demonstration with my own eyes. Great historical image
Way

noborders (1010) 2008-10-31 2:52

Just back from a short travel and I realise that I missed a lot of your recent photos, many of them so interesting !

This one has several flaws that I can see although not a great technician - but it is such a powerful shot that it certainly deserves the best ratings - a photo with a purpose and very typical of what one can witness in that country on a daily basis (still nowadays, I guess !)
Compliments and best regards,
Cath.
(NB : you can very easily remove the blue shadows on the white shirts thanks to photoshop with image > adjustments > replace colours > select these blue/turquoise casts that don't seem very natural !)

scroller (3407) 2008-10-31 23:56

Hej Gert,
A very good documentary photo. The workers with their flags and the diagonal the street is making gives balance to the picture.
Hälsningar
/Stefan