Facebook Never Sleeps

Facebook Never Sleeps, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

I must confess photography is a subject that faces me and the person I shoot in a great conundrum..they always tell me why I shoot them dont I get tired of shooting them, what do I get shooting them, they are aware that I have a shop and my profession is not photography, I am into tailoring clothes.

They also know those whom I shoot regularly I dont sell pictures nor will my pictures be published in Mumbais elite newspapers but it satisfies me being published as a memory on peoples heart and soul people I dont know from Adams.

And in all humility I shoot muck but not the kind of muck that a photo journalist shoots day in and day out without ever getting tired.

I see pictures before they become images and I dont see it with my camera but with my eyes...once you are a street photographer you stop being a visionary.. you see life you shoot life.

I dont think I have the patience nor the inclination to shoot a hodre of bees gang raping a helpless sunflower.

I might have shot the rough terrain of mountains like a street photographer the only mountain in Mumbai I saw was a hillocks growing with twin peaks on a hijras flat chest.


And I have no time to go and shoot Flamingos at Vashi though they are rmy favorite birds of flight in fancy.


I shoot alone as a public recluse or share my love of street photography with my grand daughter Marziya who watches and learns the art of Unlearning Photography.

Some times in very rare case I allow the beggar kids to shoot me with my Nikon D80 even if they accidentally chop off my head.
I enjoy the visits of my foreign photographer friends when they come to Mumbai and partake the hospitality of my wifes cooking.

Shooting them shooting life is what teaches me photography.

That is why I call Dr Glenn Losack MD my mentor.

Street photography is about individual style and form, passion and panache.


So now you know why I am seldom called to give a lecture on photo blogging or street photography.

The Indian mindset does not like to take up a hobby where there is no financial returns so God created Marwaristock agencies for them to sell their sunset slides and getting wet at Worli sea face pictures.and there are photographers though a minority like me who shoot for the heck of it..fuck who cares type off photographers.


And I am off Facebook chat , I feel like a a guy working at a nightly call center.. I am a source of hijra information and every chat conversation ends with one single note how to become a hijra , how to get rid of his penis and his testicles without castrating the soul of his humanity.

So on a Sunday I sit at my comp and now add text to old pictures call it a bloggers rant.

Everybody I encounter on Facebook chat invariably is doing a thesis or a documentary on the hijra..and I am the easiest bait for them hook line and sinker.

I chat with some good folks too but they call me on my mobile phone.


So some pictures need to age before you inundate them with textual tragedy ...


And there is a new breed of Facebook folks who deactivate their old account and than send me a message to add them in their new avatar.I dont know why.

And there are times I too would like to get the Fuck Off Facebook..but than I succumb as people on Facebook genuinely love me more than the people on Fickr or Twitter do.

Facebook is a club where the lights never go off.. even Marc Zuckerburg they say does not go to sleep on Facebook.

Biz Stone founder of Twitter micro blogs himself to Sleep we have known each other for a long time ..and the last message he sent me was -Firoze where the hell is Tharoor..