Pavel Gospodinov – Documentary photographer

Pavel’s documentary work focuses on social, environmental and cultural issues

Pavel Gospodinov is a travel, cultural and documentary photographer / videographer with passion for story telling.

Pavel has an extensive background in non-government and international development sectors with about 10 years of experience in managing, supervising and consulting for large projects (UNDP, Global Environment Facility, European Commission). For the last 5 years he has been working in parallel on documentary photography projects, which he perceives as a natural extension to his work in the non-government and development sectors.

Pavel’s documentary work focuses on social, environmental and cultural issues and subjects like brick, ship-breaking and tea production industries in Bangladesh, slums and poverty in Bangladesh and also on themes that communicate a strong sense of place and cultural awareness. Pavel’s photo/video projects often reflect his background in non-government and international development and explore issues related to the human condition and natural world.

Recently, Pavel started to work more intensively with video and multimedia, combining photography, audio, video, and the web. In the future, that will become a significant part of his visual story telling projects. Currently, Pavel’s image archive contains more than 3,000 selected photos, mostly from Bangladesh, Egypt, Morocco, India, Bulgaria and Europe. Pavel has been always in search of a visual language to enhance human development with emphasis on cultural identities, inequality and environment.

Portrait of a young man, Karwan Bazar slum, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia

Bangladesh Photography Project

The project explores and documents some of the most important social and cultural issues of the country. This is a long-term initiative, aiming at presenting the places, people and their stories as truly as possible. The project included a trip to Bangladesh (April/May 2013). Here are some of the most interesting parts of it:

Tribes of Bangladesh

Although I was not trying to be encyclopedic to the extend that I was cataloguing every different tribe or every different village or place, I wanted to try to give a detailed picture of the tribal population in Bangladesh, more specifically in the Division of Sylhet and Chittagong Hill Tracts. I succeeded to document in details 8 tribes, some of which live in the remote areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, an area with limited access near Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

Chittagong Ship Breaking Yards

Chittagong Ship Breaking Yard, located in Bangladesh, is world’s second-largest ship breaking area. The ship breaking takes place in the Fauzdarhat area along the 18 kilometers (11 mi) Sitakunda coastal strip, 20 kilometers (12 mi) north-west of Chittagong.

Bangladesh tea industry

An important part of the projects is dedicated to the tea estates and tea industry of Bangladesh, concentrated mostly around Srimangal. This is a picturesque hilly area covered with tea estates, lemon groves and pineapple gardens. A large portion of world’s highest quality tea is grown and exported from Srimangal, hence it is called the tea capital.

A photo-book about Bangladesh

I just have finished my photo book about Bangladesh, which contains 11 photo essays (text and photos), 117 photos/ 50 locations, objects, themes, 8 photo techniques and a lot of useful information about the country.

Man staying in front of brick factories chimneys, , Brick kiln factories site near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Brick-making workers, boys and children working hard at a brick factory near Chittagong, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Typical small bangladeshi canoes sailing near huge river ships, The Buriganga River, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Man lifting a basket full of coal, Charkawa village, East Side of Kirtonkhola River, Barisal, Barisal District, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia. Man carrying basket full of coal on his head, Charkawa village, East Side of Kirtonkhola River, Barisal, Barisal District, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia. Bangladeshi boatman rowing his boat in front of old big ships near Sadarghat (River port) at Karnaphuli (Karnafuli) River, Chittagong, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Bangladeshi kids playing and posing in front of the camera at Karwan slum, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Bangladeshi men unloading goods from a river ship, a river quay on the east bank of Kirtonkhola River, Barisal District, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Bangladeshi men unloading goods from a river ship, a river quay on the east bank of Kirtonkhola River, Barisal District, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Portrait of a Marma tribal girl, Marma tribe, Bangladesh. Fine Art Color Photography Seminaked Mros (Mrus or Moorangs) tribal woman cleaning rice seed prior to storage, Menron Para Village, Bandarban district, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Boy with a fishing net and a bucket in his hands going to the river, Fishermen settlement near Chamdomban village, East Side of Kirtonkhola River, Barisal, Barisal District, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia. Boatsmen waiting for passengers, Sadarghat Boat Terminal, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Dhaka Street Photography, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Portrait of a woman (tea laborer), tea estates around Sreemangal (Srimangal), Division of Sylhet, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia Pluckers (tea workers) take the tea leaves to be inspected and weighed to make sure only the highest quality, undamaged tea leaves are chosen to be processed, Tea estates near Sreemangal (Srimangal), Division of Sylhet, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Woman selling fish and singing at the same time, Rangamati fish market, Rangamati, Chittagong Division, Bangladesh, Asia Men hammering away on the metal of the big ship at Dhaka Shipyard, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Indian Sub-Continent, Asia.

One comment

  • janssens serge

    Sep 19, 2013 at 19:46

    Dommage que la plupart des photographies sont très jolies mais ne rentrent pas dans l’image de reportage mais celui de souvenir de voyage.Subjectif bien entendu !!!! Serge

Comments are closed.

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