‘These boys all had a dream to sit in a plane themselves one day’: Rahul Machigar’s best phone photo

About 20 million passengers travelled through Mumbai International airport in 2021. Some of those landing or taking off from runway 27 on 7 June of that year may well have been watched by the five boys playing in this picture; local kids who’d gathered at the viewing point Jari Mari Hill.

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“I’d been to the hill once before, and was struck by just how close the plane landed, so I returned with my phone to try to shoot some pictures,” Rahul Machigar, a Mumbai native, says. “A little boy told me that an aircraft was coming, so I quickly set up the frame and took it without hesitation. I showed them and they liked it so much that they asked me to take more!

“The viewpoint is in Kurla, which is a middle-class area,” he adds. “Some kids go to school, but some work and help their family earn money. There is a lot of poverty, too. These boys all had a dream to sit in a plane themselves one day; not necessarily even to be the pilot, just to experience flying.”

Machigar made some edits with the Lightroom app on his phone, but feels that what makes it special is its authenticity. “AI could be the future of photography, used to place anyone in a scene instead of taking them there and having them pose or be shot spontaneously. But to take reality and use AI or excessive editing to make it more unbelievable feels fake,” Machigar adds. “It’s sad to see those images gaining traction. Finding different angles and compositions to capture reality; that’s what’s special about photography to me.”