Mumbai-based photojournalist Rafiq Maqbool first heard about India’s power loom industry and its struggling workforce from a friend. Bhiwandi, located a three-hour drive from Mumbai, has long been a hub of electric-powered loom factories. Now, the industry is battling a wave of automation, cheaper Chinese imports, and rising yarn and electricity prices. Nearly 30 percent of the looms have shut down, and the future of the approximately 300,000 still in operation remains uncertain. Thousands of weavers, mostly migrants from northern India, are fighting to survive.
Maqbool wanted to explore what the decline of this once-thriving industry looked and sounded like.
Working in close collaboration with Chief Photographer Manish Swarup and Asia-Pacific Deputy News Director Yirmiyan Arthur, Maqbool made multiple trips to the crumbling factories to document the lives of the weavers both inside and outside their workspaces. For digital storytelling, he recorded the deafening sounds of the looms and captured video of workers’ repetitive motions, often waiting hours for quiet moments to conduct interviews or shoot portraits.
The resulting images showed weavers laboring in dimly lit, overheated, and dilapidated workshops. Some photos featured silent, cobweb-covered looms in shuttered factories.
Arthur crafted an innovative digital presentation for the gallery, using high-decibel audio and looping visual motion clips to create a sense of place and urgency. A portrait series embedded in the story highlighted the weavers’ weathered faces, emblematic of a community in decline.
Dharamsala-based photographer Ashwini Bhatia used Maqbool’s field reporting to craft accompanying text with context and quotes, enriching the visual package.
Judges praised Maqbool’s initiative and curiosity in gaining access to this struggling community, and the team’s creative use of digital storytelling tools to deliver an immersive, audio-visual experience.
For giving readers a compelling story of survival in the face of technological and economic change, Rafiq Maqbool earns this week’s Best of AP — First Winner.
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