Old Dhaka does not perform for the camera. It simply continues, the way it has for four centuries, and the photographs happen to whoever shows up.
Start at the riverfront, before the heat
Sadarghat comes alive before 7am. Wooden boats moor in dense, overlapping clusters, and the aerial view from a nearby rooftop turns the whole scene into a pattern of hulls and reflections. Ground level gives you something different: the shouting, the loading, the sheer density of river life.
The lanes behind the main roads
Turn off any major street in Old Dhaka and you are in a different city. Spice merchants weigh cardamom by hand. Rickshaw painters finish intricate floral designs on the back of a cart. None of it is staged, and none of it waits for you to be ready.
What to bring
- A wide lens for tight lanes, a longer one for compressed street scenes
- Small bills for tea stalls if you want to sit and shoot from one spot
- Patience - the best frames come after twenty minutes of standing still, not twenty seconds of walking past
