Sajja - A reformed Labor Camp

Would you be interested in going for a photography exhibition where the pictures are clicked not by eminent famous Photographers but by the workers from a certain labour camp? I had been looking forward to this exhibition from the time I heard about it. The owner of Sajja labour camp went absconding from the country due to the economic downturn. Result being, the employees (the laborers) were left stranded on their own without their passport, and a camp to stay in with no basic amenities like water & electricity. The National newspaper mentioned, they were staying without pay for 18 months!

'Adopt a camp' - (an organization that has been working with laborers in labor camp since few years) discovered about them and adopted them. A Documentary photographer Karen Dias taught them basic photography skills through donated cameras. They had never held a camera in their hand but gradually through constant encouragement, the laborers progressed from clicking posed snapshots to everyday life images which narrated a story behind them. Karen's aim behind these photographs was to share it with the public and generate income for the laborers. The National newspaper said, few of them have already managed getting jobs with the help of Adopt-a-camp. The exhibition is organized by Gulf Photo Plus and each photograph is available in two sizes for the public to buy. For the complete story and details you can check the Gulf Photo Plus here.

I have captured a few pics from my visit to the Gallery, the exhibition started on January 18th and is on till February 16th. I read the workers were so excited for their opening night, that they left their camps in Sharjah at 10:30 in the morning for a 7:30 show! Obviously it meant a lot to them. I saw them enjoying getting photographs clicked, giving interviews and being the center of attraction. The joy and happiness they felt was evident on their faces. Everybody had a picture clicked with them, even me!

Its these laborers who built our cities so convenient and beautiful for us to stay comfortably. This was such a heart warming, inspiring & brilliant act put together that I could not stop myself from sharing it here.

 

The Photographers :)

Busy being the center of attraction!

 

 

The entire team who made this possible

The pictures you see behind are the individual photoshoot done for each of them,

and they get these pictures as gifts

Small is Big

Robert Brault said "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." But the problem is I took this advice too literally!

Not that I don't value what this sentence is supposed to mean in fact if you know me, I do that more than anything else, but here we are talking about tiny little things literally. Small toys, cars, animated movie characters, puppies, birds. I even had a tiny turtle as pet, the size of my palm, Yes I said I had. Not anymore! We better not get there. Little things fascinate me. It wont be surprising if you see me talking to a toy character, I know it shounds really silly but I guess I have not grown up yet!! And did i mention toy cars, Raghu once bought a remote controlled toy car for his nephew and the poor boy just had to play assistant to Raghu which meant stopping the car from banging in the wall, bringing it back from under the table/sofa and so on....he never got a chance to play with it. And why do you think I mention about Raghu here, because why should I alone sound silly, Its not just me who is a kid in the house ;)

Anyways, remember I mentioned about bringing Mr.Clumpsy home in one of my Dec post. So why not a photo shoot for him!

Ever so animated Mr.Clumpsy from the movie Smurfs!

We picked up  this car in India, it was supposed to sit on our car (the real car) dashboard, but now as Mr.Clumpsy owns it, we dare not touch it..

Ready to take on the world..

And Mr.Clumpsy obviously prefers the car over the scooter, after all there are less chances of falling down a car than a scooter. Don't forget he is clumsy and accident prone..

My in-laws thought there was only 1 kid in the family - my nephew. But their thoughts have changed after they saw these. :)