Martin Roemers: Seeing through his lenses

Every metro has a unique face. This face is not defined by the planners of the town but by the people who live in it and also by the people who visit it. This metro here with a very unique face is Kolkata (Calcutta), the ‘city of Joy’ and the visitor through whose camera lenses we see it is the award winning photographer Martin Roemers. For this picture, Martin won the 1st prize (category ‘Daily Life stories’) in the ‘World Press Photo Contest-2011’.

Martin has captured the speed of the city, the pace of its inhabitants and the bright color of the busy day in a beautifully composed candid shot. I was thrilled to see this picture and immediately googled up to see more of Martin’s work. What I got was not photographs but a gateway to a stunning world which Martin Roemers has captured for us.

The pictures from his ongoing series ‘The eyes of war’ show us WWII victims from Netherlands, Germany, US and Poland. These are people who have lost their sight to that gruesome war which is now more than 60 years old. In a war the world sees the winning side and the losing side, the drama of triumphs and the horrors of death. After being shocked with this the world simply moves on, but Martin chooses not to do so. He takes pains to revisit and capture the bitter, blind and aged truth that war has left behind - a very powerful photo journalistic statement made by this acclaimed photo journalist.

Here are a few of the pictures from his series ‘Relics of the Cold War’ (Martin also has a book with the same name)

Martin studied photography at the Academy of Arts in Enschede, in the Netherlands. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Newsweek and The New Yorker. His work has been exhibited widely and is held in public collections including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He has received awards and recognitions including two World Press Photo Awards.

Martin is Represented by Panos Pictures, London (Worldwide), Hollandse Hoogte Photo Agency, Amsterdam (The Netherlands only) and Laif Photos & Reportagen, Cologne (Germany only).

His website: www.martinroemers.com

My sincere thanks to Martin for permissions and his picture which he has shared with this blog!