Learning to See 08: Firoze Shakir
Remembering the bold Mumbai street photographer who shot misery while cavorting with hope.
Firoze Shakir redefined the rules for photographing the people of India. He left behind thousands of stories of people who had no one else but him to tell their stories when he passed away recently on Thursday, December 26, 2024. This is how he described himself in his YouTube bio:
I shoot India Faith Culture Traditions as a photo journalist
I do not endorse nor promote the people I shoot
I am not an Islamic Channel
This channel is not a platform for you to debate discuss argue
I don’t share my email or my cell number
I am not a holistic healer
I can’t vouch for the genuineness of the Sufi Healers
I am not into dua tawiz
Dont shit your hate bias and dont tell me what to shoot not to shoot
I follow You Tube guidelines
I only post original content .
All my videos are photo journalistic all made in India.
Firoze Shakir is a Street Photographer Shooting Misery, Cavorting with Hope
Firoze Shakir - Photographer No. 1, is a Street Illusionist Shooting the Magic of India.
I SHOOT CULTURE OF INDIA.
DIVERSE FAITH RELIGION LIFESTYLE SUFISM SHIASM HINDUISM POETRY STREET.
His photographs, hundreds of thousands in number (I'm not exaggerating), pierce your eyes like sharp shards of glass and lodge themselves in your brain. He was pure shock and awe. They challenge all your ideas and beliefs about what photographs should look like.
He made his photographs walking fearlessly through spaces no one else dared to tread, telling stories of people and communities society has chosen to ignore.
The best part of his photography is that he shared it freely online across platforms with the same abandon as someone decades, or even generations, younger than him.
He has shot thousands of photographs, which you can find on Flickr.
Later, when people's attention shifted away from Flickr to other platforms, he took his photographs and strung them together as videos, similar to the beads he wore, and posted them on YouTube.Â
The titles of his playlists reveal his eye: Hijras of India, Sufism in India, The Aghori Sadhus of India, Ambubachi Mela, Khamakhya, Assam, Mariamman Feast, Ear Cleaners of Bandra Talao, Dam Madar Malangs of Madariyya Silisila, Makanpur and many more.
A video I made when I met him at his home in 2016
In public, he dressed like a rock star, unabashedly wearing the Shia faith he inherited in a country mad with Islamophobia. With his open smile, he broke barriers, his chuckle dissolved age, and he welcomed the world with wide-open arms. While the Narendra Modis and Donald Trumps of the world proclaimed from their pedestals that they could identify others by their clothes and looks, this photographer, who belonged to the same generation as those two men, did the opposite: he dressed to proclaim his beliefs. He accepted all without caring about what they were wearing.
Interestingly, Firoze Shakir discovered the camera relatively late in life - in his late 40s. That was when digital cameras became affordable for most Indians. His love for clothes predates this avatar. Among other things he did, he had a fairly successful career as a costume designer for several Hindi film movies and stars.
Here’s Firoze Shakir’s IMDB page.
In January, photographer Craig Boehman organised a walk to remember Firoze from Bandra Talao, one of his favourite haunts. People who knew him and others who he influenced turned up for the walk along Bazaar Street, the village of Bandra that ended by the sea, and the mangrove patch opposite the great composer Naushad’s bungalow.
Images from the remembrance walk.
Joe, who lives on Bazaar Street, just behind Firoze’s home, pays tribute to him during the remembrance walk.
Thank you for memorializing this exceptional human being.
A beautiful ode to the one and only maverick photographer from Bandra, Firoze Shakir.