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"Bribed The Gate Man And Slipped
Through A Small Iron Door Into
The Ship Breaking Yards, And Saw
Scenes That Burnt Into My Mind Forever"


Postcards from Batiary... Bangladesh was my mission.
We're talking insane bus rides, high risk...
and the ship yards...

Don't be too worried. Bangladesh wasn't all that bad. They just told me to stay home at night and not wander the streets, but... preparing for the early morning ride to the ship breaking yards was insane. Had to wear earplugs, and wrap my face with a scarf, just to stop the dust and noise and too many people noticing I wasn't a local... Honestly, I didn't care too much, maybe I was focused on the job ahead of me.

This is an image from Google Earth© at 630 meters up looking down at a small part of Batiary ship yards. The city is Chittagong, the country Bangladesh. I couldn't get images of the massive amount of ships I saw, dragged and pulled up into the shore lines of Batiary, but maybe you can see it in some of the images I took.

Or maybe you can't. Whatever. Anyway most of the time I was down at the shipyards trying to get the okay to shoot and pulling my camera out for a few minutes then hiding it again and trying to be just like a 'normal' tourist... the sun often didn't appear until after lunch, and the mornings had a tendency to be clouded in a haze.

But certainly the distant sonic-like booms I heard reverberated throughout the whole place as another 3 storey up, possibly shoeless dude finished cutting through another chunk of metal ship wall and it slammed down towards the ship and earth below.

Couldn't help but thinking of the safety factor and potential accidents involving oxy acetelene torches, welding and jagged metal edges flashed through my head. Especially the shoeless stuff. And those dudes hauling the wires and pulling metal through thick mud, sheesh.

Still, they were really able to smile with me. But I couldn't help but cry a little. My heart jumped into my mouth, as they grimaced into a smile for me. It was kinda the saddest thing, and at the same time, the most amazing spectacle of human endeavor and de-construction that I'd ever witnessed.

People shouldn't have to work like this in this day and age. Go back a few thousand years, maybe it was okay. But not now, and not today. I get upset looking at these images because it reminds me of walking around that place with all the half skeleton and canonized ship structures, and all these figures hauling metal, cutting metal, cutting giants ships into little cartable pieces.

So... after I nearly killed my translator (he was a nice kid, I just was very 'pure' about the shooting in a natural environment, the essence of a great photographer? :) for telling the curious folks gathering around me what to do and how to look... Not good. Just let it be I thought. Respect these people who work in this place... Let me do what I do... :)

Anyway, just imagine if you can a real wide, real far as the eye can see, beach front or beach flat. Just sort of caked, dry mud, with a little bit of ocean rolling in at some sections. Then imagine about 20 or so huge, container ships in various levels of dismemberment. Then you got all these little in the distance figures all clambering over them. Pushing things, pulling things, hosting things, cutting stuff.

You get the picture I'm sure. The caretaker of the area who looked after us had one such accident a few years ago. His hand was, well, fused into a clumpy ball. The fingers were all pushed into the palm and it wasn't really a pretty sight. That was a heavy metal shipyards accident... I made sure I shook that hand when I left. I wanted to show him my appreciation. I guess I was saying, I care, but how I can help you? I'm sure there's a way...

Kinda reminds me of the industrial revolution. I was there then...

All my crazy adventures into forbidden, no-go zones, and everywhere else I have tried to get to, and will, one day, have been happily sponsored by the kind folks at The Digital Camera Company...

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