Mumbai: American photographer launches crowd-sourced Aarey Forest Image Bank

Selections from Aarey Forest Image Bank highlight the natural beauty and the lives of residents in Aarey Milk Colony

On an ordinary walk through Aarey Milk Colony, Craig Boehman, 47, couldn't get past the obvious. "On one side, were slogans announcing that work for the Metro 3 corridor is underway, such as Connecting the Unconnected and Mumbai is Upgrading, while across the road were houses of its residents, mainly adivasis," says the Malad resident.

Boehman, an independent photographer, is the man behind Aarey Forest Image Bank. The database, which can be found on Instagram, Facebook and mainly Flickr, is meant as a crowd-sourced pool of photographs that offers vignettes of life in Aarey Milk Colony, which has become the heavily contested site between the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) and, those on the other side of the debate, such as environmentalists and the adivasis.

The Flickr site currently hosts 55 photographs, all of which can be used freely by anyone, including publishing media. People can contribute by joining the Flickr group. "Through this database, I wanted to put the spotlight on the immediate life of the people who live here," he says.

A peaceful activism

Boehman is an American who has been living in Mumbai for the last five years. He moved here soon after he married his Indian wife. He had been a screenwriter for a while, but turned to his old love for photography two years ago. Having heard a lot about the ecologically destructive metro work at Aarey, he ventured to the area on a Sunday morning in January this year. Over time, with some help from a charitable organisation named We Will Help, Boehman documented the people who live in the various padas in Aarey.