‘This was one of 40 pictures of Yemen I showed at an exhibition in Brussels. The Yemeni ambassador came to me with tears in his eyes and said: “No one has shown my country like this”’
hen I started out as a photographer in my home country of Bangladesh, my focus was on social documentary. Later, I developed personal projects and travelled more widely but in 2013 and 2014, the political situation in Bangladesh became unstable, with attacks on protesters, secular people and LGBT activists. Images of atrocities were widely shared on social media and I developed a love-hate relationship with my own work.
The aim of my photographs was to get beyond the perception of Yemen as a country in conflict, beset with poverty and suffering, and to focus instead on food, to highlight the Yemeni people and their culture. I got to sample and photograph many Yemeni staples – grilled fish, meat and flatbreads cooked over hot stones, coffee and sidr honey.Here we see “Uncle Adib”, who hosted us on the island of Socotra, part of an archipelago over 300km from the mainland.
Most of my photographs were in black and white, but this one demanded colour. Uncle Adib is opening a goatskin that contains date paste a year and a half old. It was a wild moment – we had no idea dates could be preserved like that. You can see other skins piled behind. He showed us one with three-year-old paste in it, which he used to make date juice. I have to admit, I’m not fond of dates, but people I was with tried it and made polite noises.
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