Day 1 — Arrival & Old Dhaka: First Notes in a New Key

You step into Dhaka’s heat and hum, meet your photographer-guide, and drop bags before chasing last light to the Buriganga. Country boats scissor across the river; ferries groan and glitter; a boy in a red shirt grins from a prow. In the alleys behind the ghats, a ribbon of rickshaws paints colour through the dusk. You practise making order from chaos—layers, leading lines, kindness. Blue hour settles; the river mirrors a web of lights. Welcome to your set.

Day 2 — River People & Dry-Dock City: Grit with Grace

At first call to prayer, you’re on the water: commuters standing in skiffs like reeds, boatmen pulling with the tide. Later, a controlled entrance to the dry-dock—Asia’s vast mechanic’s bench where hulls loom, and sparks tumble. You work long lenses and safe distances; PPE on, curiosity up. The afternoon softens into markets—ginger pyramids, bangles, laughter—and you learn to ask, gesture, and wait for the smile that unlocks the frame.

Day 3 — Batik Riot & Rice Geometry: Colour and Control

East of the city, fabric fields unfurl—strips of tie-dye pinned like flags to the sky. Workers tug, twist, rinse; colour pours. You shoot abstracts, then step back to place a figure in the pattern. By afternoon, you’re in courtyards where families draw the day’s rice into perfect lines with wooden rakes. Geometry, repetition, a small figure as punctuation—your compositions start to sing.

Day 4 — Jaflong Stone Country: Dust, Boats, and Human Scale

Dawn hangs pale over the river beneath the Meghalaya hills. Hundreds of little boats push into the shallows; teams dig, lift, carry; the water turns to mirrors and then to churn. Everyone moves with purpose, even the children with small baskets. You work the arc of a lift, the curve of a spine, the glitter of water on stone. A foreman offers tea; your camera rests for a minute; the dust turns gold.

Day 5 — Fog & Fire: Controlled Dump-Yard Drama, Then Southbound

A veil of morning fog folds into smoke from slow fires at a dump-yard—an eerie stage for silhouettes. You keep it ethical and brief: consent for portraits, no glamorising child labour, and your guide managing conversations. Then the road unspools south—tea at a roadside stall, portraits in a market, a mechanic’s smile under a smear of grease. By evening, the port lights of Chattogram flicker on the horizon.

Day 6 — Ship-Breaking by Sea & Aluminium by Hammer: Scale & Rhythm

Tide and light align. From a licensed offshore boat, rusted giants rise from the surf; torches gust bright against steel; ladders tattoo the hulls. You compress scale with a long lens; the sea heaves; the frame holds. Afternoon shifts to aluminium workshops—molten to mould to mallet to shine. Bang-bang-bang. Blur a hand; freeze a spark; thank the craftsman.

Day 7 — Cox’s Bazar Fish Port: Silver Dawn, Human Storm

Darkness leaks to grey as trawlers nose in. Baskets fly; auctioneers sing prices; gulls cut the air. Ice fog kisses your lens; a man with rope tattoos flashes a quick peace sign before shouldering a load. Later, nets are repaired like lace. At day’s end, the beach becomes theatre: silhouettes, moon-prowed boats, kids racing the lip of waves, the sky going to fire then embers.

Day 8 — Betel-Nut Ballet & Moheshkhali Dusk: Colour and Curve

Morning in Chokoria: the market spills saffron, rust, and lime—sacks of betel nuts, voices bouncing, scales clacking. You climb a stool for a top-down pattern and step down for a handshake portrait. Afternoon, a speedboat skips to Moheshkhali: salt pans, fishermen mending nets, the timber skeleton of a boat becoming a boat. Sunset throws clean lines; you strip a scene to shape—curve of prow, thread of net, a figure in negative space.

Day 9 — Dry-Fish Geometry → Dhaka Blue Hour: Lines and Lives

Rows and rows of bamboo racks climb the horizon; fish scale to the sky; a woman adjusts a string with fingers like calligraphy. Two-thirds of the workers here are women; you ask, you laugh, you share previews on the LCD. After the morning’s shoot, you fly back to Dhaka and slip into blue hour—neon, steam, a quick bowl of noodles, a last frame of a boy in a window lit like a tiny stage.

Day 10 — Brick Kilns & Trains: Heat and Motion

The kiln wakes before the sun. Clay becomes bricks; bricks become stacks; stacks become head-loads carried in parades of red dust and stamina. You frame diagonals against the kiln mouth—ember light licking at faces; then outside, silhouettes in smoke. Late afternoon finds you by a local station: a whistle, a rush of air, a blur you turn into a pan—one sharp face in a river of motion.

Day 11 — River Landings & Yoghurt Village: Chains and Circles

At a riverside landing, human chains unlock the cargo of lighter vessels—coal, sand, brick—step by perfect step to shore. You compress distance and let rhythm do the work. After lunch, you chase the smell of woodsmoke and milk to a village of curd makers. Milk boils; clay cups await; the cooling room is a geometry of circles. Someone hands you a warm cup; you make a picture of steam.

Day 12 — Wholesale & Floating Markets + Rice Patterns: Markets that Move

Before dawn, a wholesale market erupts: crates, arguments, laughter, a thousand small deals. By mid-morning, boats nose together at a floating market—cauliflowers, eggplants, tomatoes, voices calling across water. Later, another sweep of rice courtyards, this time with longer shadows and bolder lines.

Day 13 — Rural Fishing Festival: A Sea Without a Sea

You leave early for the haor. The plain ripples with people—hundreds, then more—stepping into the shallows with woven traps. A horn sounds; the water explodes with movement. You go wide to show scale, then mid-distance to show intent, then close—with permission—to show hands wet with river. The frenzy subsides; the laughter lingers. Evening back at the lodge for a relaxed group image review and informal critique.

Day 14 — Chicken Market Farewell: Pyramids of Feathers, Notes of Light

One last dawn. Chickens thrum in twine pyramids; vendors weigh, haggle, grin; light patches through tarps like stained glass. You work fast and kindly, then put the camera down. Breakfast. Bags. Airport. The frames travel home with you—salt and smoke and steam and all.