Jahid Apu
Bangladesh | B. 1997
Jahid Apu likes to leave Dhaka (Bangladesh), where he lives, and set out to discover the “essence of life”. Freelance photographer, self-taught, he is passionate about exploring and studying different human experiences, witnessing cultural diversity and documenting its manifestations of color. “The Red Queen”, the photograph that won him the Public Award at the 1st IN COLORS PROJECT, shows that he knows how to reach his destination.
If there is any way to establish a bridge between photography and programming, the author's background, it will be through metaphor – Jahid Apu is attentive to the infinite codes of life, the most complex system. This attention and the talent, with which he has earned distinctions, allow him to assume what he wishes: to share with us, through photography, what he can see and experience.
Photo by Jahid Apu
INTERVIEW
SEE TO FEEL
You are young. As a photographer, what are your goals?
There are many possible answers... But my goal is to get people to see what I see. It is as simple as that. And yet so desperately tricky. What I seek is to provide a creative perspective of my work that makes the viewer get lost in the photograph and in thoughts. I do not take pride in work that someone looks at and says, “wow, pretty picture...” and moves on. For me, success is achieved when I catch the person off guard, drawing emotions, or when someone comes to me to tell me what the photograph brings to mind. If someone can look at one of my photographs and know what it is, how I felt about it, or even feel the same way, then I have achieved success.
How did this passion for photography begin?
When I started seeing things. Not just looking, but seeing. And when I started seeing things, I started loving what I saw. So, I wanted to represent them and preserve them less fleetingly.
You studied computer science. Do you work in this field or are you dedicated to photography?
I am a programmer who loves photography too. But I think I'd rather follow my passion and become a professional photographer.
CREDENTIALS
Public Award, In Colors Project – REACT! by Lumicroma, Portugal
Grand Prix Photo de Saint Tropez, France
Sustainable Development Goals Photo Award, Bangladesh
2021
Gump International Photo Contest, Hong kong
World Photography Awards, North America
SPIE International photo contest, USA
UNESCO Youth Eyes on the Silk Roads International photo contest, France
In Colors Project – REACT! by Lumicroma, Portugal
Related Exhibitions
IN COLORS PROJECT | REACT!
The broadness ... Ler Mais
The broadness to which the theme is open is represented in this set of 50 artworks by photographers from 22 nationalities. React! to what, from what perspective? The possibility of endless interpretations is mirrored in an exhibition in which the reaction is as much in the photographed "scene" itself as in the impression of the person who photographed it, and also, and always, in the eye of the person who appreciates the photograph.
In this realm, there is the image of time and place, of many places and many qualities of time. There is the beauty of moments, spaces, cultures and traditions. There is a whole scale of emotions. There is the poetry of landscapes and the destruction wrought by war. There is fantasy in improbable scenarios. There are global concerns, personal instances. Sometimes the weight of existence; sometimes the lightness of laughter in the face of death.
There remains, still, the certainty of a kaleidoscopic world, in permanent change, so that stories repeat themselves. Because man repeats himself. The continuity of life is also maintained. It is in the faces of many. It is in the colors. It is in the light of black and white. It is in the instinct. In the will. In what is lost, in what is conquered. Ler Menos
IN COLORS PROJECT | HOME
In 74 photographs, 32 authors from 14 nationalities give us the most poignant portrait of what we are, what we do and what we are failing at. Because HOME has smiles and exposed wounds. It shows a sense of belonging and an absurd lack of ground. It is the human cloak of a thousand patches to which we all belong.
This is our Home. And we can't close our eyes.
IN COLORS PROJECT - an initiative without borders by Lumicroma - reclaims the relevance of photography as a socio-cultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences, aesthetics and visions, it aims to trace, every year, the big picture of the times in which we live. Ler Menos
AUSCHWITZ: TRACE(S) OF A LEGACY
To keep the memory alive appeals to reflection and to vigilanc ... Ler Mais
To keep the memory alive appeals to reflection and to vigilance and encourages the commitment of future generations, so that, through these, the voices of the survivors, which will soon no longer be heard, can echoe.
We know the history, we have seen the films and we have read the books. We have always been told that Auschwitz is the true symbol of Holocaust, since more than one million jews were murdered there. A factory of killing people! Gypsies, ho-mossexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and political dissidents also suffered in this dark place.
We have read about the hideous experiments carried out by Mengele in Auschwitz. We have seen photographies of the survivors, of the corpses, of the crematoriums, of the abandoned personal belongings. We started our journey to Poland with the thought that we would be prepared to face the interpretative centre of the Holocaust and, through it, find the answer to our restlessness: how could this have been humanly possible?
During the journey, we revisited those with whom we had previously shared the feeling of the concentration camp. All the pages, testimonies and faces remained well alive in our memories.
We have arrived, the presence in Auschwitz overwhelms us!
No memory, read, studied, seen or heard can be compared to standing right there. In the deafening silence of that place, which carries within itself the imense loss of human sense, the question of Theodor Adorno gains strenght: How can poetry be possible after Auschwitz Ler Menos
PARAÍSO DE COURA
Alfredo Cunha's eye, attentive and sharp, documents this magic, this spirit of brotherhood, this collective happiness. The joy of the audience and the euphoria of the bands, who never forget th ... Ler Mais
Alfredo Cunha's eye, attentive and sharp, documents this magic, this spirit of brotherhood, this collective happiness. The joy of the audience and the euphoria of the bands, who never forget that breathtaking human wall and the generous way they are received. It captures the sweetness, the serenity, the deepest peace, the shared love, the respect, the amazement, the unique energy of the Taboão river, contrasted with the exaltation, the apotheosis, the celebration and the joy, that sacred emotion that Almada Negreiros once said was "the most serious thing in life".
Year after year, we need the Paredes de Coura Festival to recharge the batteries of passion, to dispel the mediocrity of the grayest days, to cure the diseases of the sadness that makes us pale and to chase away the city carrion that burrows into our bones. To fill ourselves with beauty, euphoria and the deepest peace, in divine communion with nature. On pilgrimage, in a perpetual return to magic.