Eight of the town's sixteen studios are shut; the rest live on passport photos

This studio owner in Chandpur town learned the work in another photographer's shop and opened his own in 1998, when people came in groups to be photographed at Eid, Puja, weddings and Boishakh. Smartphone selfies and cheap DSLRs have all but erased that demand, and customers now come mainly for passport, visa and official photographs. In his words, "re-orders for prints just do not come any more" — everybody's pictures stay on their phone. Eight studios in the town have shut and eight remain, and many photographers have left the trade. Another owner, in Puranbazar, says cameras bought for 80,000 to 90,000 taka are lying ruined from disuse. The ones doing comparatively better have added video work to the stills.