EARLY WORK (1975-1982)
When he was fifteen Pablo Bartholomew, the son of intellectual immigrants from Pakistan and Burma, was expelled from school. His independent spirit drove him to the seamy side of New Delhi, which he recorded with a photo camera. At the age of 19 he won a prize at World Press Photo with a series on drug addiction. Attracted by the big city, in the early 1980s he moved to Mumbai. Although he earned his living on Bollywood film sets, he documented the city’s street life in his free time. His blistering photographs in EARLY WORK (1975-1982) of eunuchs, pickpockets, opium addicts and prostitutes proved to be pioneering. Never before had India’s raw street life been pictured so systematically. Since then such photo reportage has become commonplace in India.
