Kolkata based photographer and software engineer, Desbomita Das stumbled upon a illegal rail side community on the way to work one morning and was taken by the number of people including young children, the dangerous proximity to the operating railroad and the governments ability to let it's people live literally on the edge. Due to the rising population and cost of housing, many who work daily in the city have been forced to set up camp along this dangerous stretch of land.
Gaining the trust of the community, and hoping to raise the awareness of this to the public and therefore the Government, Das was able to insert herself into daily life on the tracks. Using most likely just available light used by the photographer due to space issues and the need to move quickly, she documents this community at all hours of the day. Desbomita Das has a great eye combining composition and color, often using the railroad tracks as leading lines and drawing the viewer in. Das shows the extent of her commitment to this issue not only in the various hours that she photographs, but also that she puts herself in danger, to become an accepted part of this illegal community.
I am impressed with Das's work in this series. one of the hardest things to do in my opinion is to gain a strangers trust so much that they let you into their daily lives. So much of our lives we like to keep to ourselves and behind closed doors, that to be welcomed into that is a really big deal. I enjoy that her images in Life and Lines are portraits of an entire community, not just individuals, and really give the viewer as sense of the environment and space and proximity. I'd like to be able to gain access to a community and produce similar documentation style images.
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