Martin Roemers on photographing urban life

The award-winning Dutch photographer documented life in 22 megacities – cities with populations over 10 million  – for his monumental book, Metropolis. As he prepares to judge our ‘Urban Life’ themed competition, he tells us about his approach, and shares advice for others…

SAIFEE JUBILEE STREET, KUMBHARWADA, MUMBAI, INDIA

It was in Mumbai that I first had the idea for Metropolis. I was standing there in the city, amidst the crowds of people, the lack of personal space, the energy, the noise, the smell – it was so overwhelming. I wondered how it would be possible to capture all these things and make them visible in a single image. I came to the conclusion that you had to show movement, because everything goes so fast in these big cities, and the way to do that is by using long exposures of around four seconds.

I went to one of the busiest parts of Mumbai, a big junction in the Muslim quarter near Mohammed Ali Road. I asked the manager of this old sleazy hotel there if I could sit in one of his rooms which overlooks the junction and I stayed the whole afternoon into the evening, just taking the same shot over and over again, experimenting with different exposure times, observing the different elements  – people, vehicles  – moving around within the frame. Everything has to fall in the right place. I work on analogue so I don’t know immediately how it has turned out, although sometimes I have a feeling. When I came home weeks later I developed the films and many of the images were useless. But a few really stood out. That was the start.

In 2011 the United Nations published a report saying that more than half of the world’s population was now living in cities, and that percentage was set to increase. That was big news. I decided to expand this project and do it worldwide. At the time there were 22 megacities – Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, London, Los Angeles, Manila, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, Paris, Rio De Janeiro, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo – so I decided to focus on them. By the time I finished there were 30!

RADIAL ROAD, TONDO, MANILA, PHILIPPINES

RODEO DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, USA

My concept was about visualising city life, but also about how people exist in the city.  I asked myself several questions. How can people live, or sometimes survive in these big cities. What are the differences between megacities and what do they have in common? What are the intrinsic problems? How do you organise housing, infrastructure, electricity, water etc? There’s this constant stream of people moving there in search of work, and of a better life. They have big dreams but sometimes they end up in the margins of the city, working in the unofficial economy, living in slum housing with no electricity, no sanitation system. I wanted to include that in the project. It always strikes me especially in American cities, how you have this extreme inequality – rich people with expensive sports cars and homeless people sleeping on the streets.

I see the city as a theatre. Each one has a different stage and different actors. Working with a local guide, I’d find the busiest spots in the city where you find lots of traffic, pedestrians and businesses. It could be a market or a junction, anywhere there is activity. I’d shoot at the end of the day, when it’s rush hour and the light is best, and always from a high vantage point.

Urban life continues to fascinate photographers because it’s always changing. If you look at a city, like 10 or 20 years ago, it’s totally different. And you can find many subjects in the city – it’s  the centre of the economy, of politics, the arts, everything is happening there. It never gets tired. In judging this competition, I’m looking for an original approach, in terms of form as well as content. There are many photographers working in the city and many are doing more or less the same thing. Ask yourself, what is the story you want to tell? And how will you translate this visually?

NEW M.A. JINNAH ROAD, SADDAR TOWN, KARACHI, PAKISTAN