Maybach Foundation Interview Series Episode 3: Insights from Vicky Roy

Vicky Roy is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er whose inspir­ing jour­ney from liv­ing on the streets of Del­hi to exhibit­ing his work inter­na­tion­al­ly embod­ies resilience, cre­ativ­i­ty and the impor­tance of men­tor­ship. We chose him for this inter­view not only because of his remark­able tal­ent but also because of his spe­cial con­nec­tion to the May­bach Foun­da­tion. As a for­mer mentee in our World Trade Cen­ter Doc­u­men­tary Arts Project, Vicky’s sto­ry reflects the core of our mis­sion: unlock­ing poten­tial through oppor­tu­ni­ty and guid­ance. His pho­tog­ra­phy, which explores themes of iden­ti­ty, urban life and trans­for­ma­tion, con­tin­ues to earn inter­na­tion­al recognition.

Here’s the Inter­view between the May­bach Foun­da­tion (MF) and Vicky Roy (VR):

MF: Can you share with us where you come from and how it was for you grow­ing up in your home country?

VR: I am orig­i­nal­ly from Puru­lia, West Ben­gal, India. I ran away from home at the age of 11 and came to Del­hi. I lived on a rail­way plat­form for a few months, where I col­lect­ed water bot­tles, refilled them, and sold them back in the train. The life on plat­form was a tough one, so I start­ed work­ing at a small road­side restau­rant. I worked as a dish­wash­er here. After a few months, an NGO called Salam Bal­ak Trust picked me up from there.

MF: What inspired you to pur­sue pho­tog­ra­phy, and how did you dis­cov­er it as your passion?

VR: I strug­gled with my stud­ies and scored quite low in 10^th grade. My teacher at Salam Bal­ak Trust sug­gest­ed that since I was­n’t doing well aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, I should con­sid­er pur­su­ing voca­tion­al train­ing. I became inspired by pho­tog­ra­phy when I arrived at Salam Bal­ak Trust in 2000; there was a pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop tak­ing place, but I was­n’t part of it. The kids who excelled in that work­shop got the chance to exhib­it their pho­tos in Indone­sia and Sri Lan­ka. I thought that if I pur­sued pho­tog­ra­phy, I too might have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to trav­el like them. On a whim, I told my teacher that I want­ed to explore pho­tog­ra­phy, not real­iz­ing I would actu­al­ly become a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. The teacher at the NGO con­nect­ed me with a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who need­ed a pho­to assis­tant. From that point on, I grad­u­al­ly dis­cov­ered my pas­sion for photography.

MF: How did your expe­ri­ence with the World Trade Cen­ter Doc­u­men­tary Arts Project in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the May­bach Foun­da­tion influ­ence your artis­tic vision and shape the direc­tion of your future work?

My expe­ri­ence with the World Trade Cen­ter Doc­u­men­tary Arts Project was instru­men­tal in shap­ing my pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment. I learned the impor­tance of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and gained valu­able skills in the work­place. They also helped me gain admis­sion to the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter of Pho­tog­ra­phy, where I stud­ied the basics of pho­tog­ra­phy, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly learned only through my work as a pho­to assis­tant. These expe­ri­ences sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost­ed my con­fi­dence and allowed me to devel­op an artis­tic vision. My time at ICP, com­bined with my work on the World Trade Cen­ter Doc­u­men­tary Arts Project, pro­vid­ed me with clear direc­tion on how to present and show­case my work professionally.

MF: Can you share with us a spe­cif­ic moment from your time pho­tograph­ing the recon­struc­tion of the World Trade Cen­ter that had a last­ing impact on you, both per­son­al­ly and professionally?

VR: When I start­ed this project, I was very ner­vous about how I would com­mu­ni­cate in Eng­lish. I felt infe­ri­or, think­ing that if I could­n’t speak Eng­lish, it meant I was­n’t a pro­fes­sion­al. How­ev­er, once I arrived at the con­struc­tion site, my mis­con­cep­tions were dis­pelled. There were many peo­ple from var­i­ous coun­tries work­ing there, and I real­ized they most­ly cared about the work itself, not about what lan­guage you spoke. On the first day, I had a mem­o­rable inci­dent. There was a per­son chang­ing into his site uni­form in a cab­in, and I thought it would be a good moment to cap­ture on cam­era. As soon as I aimed my cam­era at him, he became very angry and shout­ed, “Hey man, why are you tak­ing my pic­ture?” I was real­ly scared since it was only my third or fourth day in New York. He con­tin­ued to scold me, say­ing, “How dare you take my pic­ture with­out my per­mis­sion? I’m going to call the police,” as he pulled out his phone. My men­tor, Joy, was stand­ing at a dis­tance, so I called him for help because I could­n’t under­stand what the per­son was say­ing and did­n’t know how to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion. Joy approached and explained the project to him, which helped calm him down. I under­stood that the World Trade Cen­ter, which was under con­struc­tion, held sig­nif­i­cant mean­ing for the Amer­i­can peo­ple. It was a his­toric event, and I real­ized that once it was com­plet­ed, I would have been part of that his­to­ry through the pho­tographs I took dur­ing its con­struc­tion. Per­son­al­ly, it was a proud moment for me, and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, I was hon­ored to be part of an assign­ment that allowed me to work as a photographer.

MF: What is your ‘favorite,’ or most inspir­ing pho­to you have seen dur­ing your career?

VR: My favorite, or most inspir­ing, pho­to was tak­en dur­ing what I believe was my first or sec­ond day at the site. I knew that the World Trade Cen­ter had been destroyed by a plane, and while I was there, I was sur­prised to see planes still pass­ing over­head. I decid­ed to cap­ture that moment, and just as I point­ed my cam­era to take a pic­ture, a bird flew into the frame. I find that pho­to very inspir­ing, as it feels like a new life was intro­duced into my pho­to­graph. It cre­at­ed a sense of con­nec­tion for me, as the recon­struc­tion of the build­ing sym­bol­izes bring­ing life back to that space.

Anoth­er favorite pho­to­graph of mine was tak­en on July 4^th, when I used a fish­eye lens to cap­ture the entire con­struc­tion site. This image also holds a spe­cial place in my heart.

MF: How did your approach to pho­tog­ra­phy evolve while work­ing on the World Trade Cen­ter project, com­pared to your ear­li­er work in India?

VR: Pho­tograph­ing the World Trade Cen­ter (WTC) was a unique expe­ri­ence for me because, pri­or to that, I pri­mar­i­ly focused on street pho­tog­ra­phy, par­tic­u­lar­ly cap­tur­ing moments relat­ed to chil­dren. When I began the WTC project and knew I would be pho­tograph­ing a con­struc­tion site, I quick­ly real­ized that Indi­an and Amer­i­can con­struc­tion prac­tices are vast­ly different.

Before start­ing to shoot at the con­struc­tion site, we received prop­er train­ing, which includ­ed sig­nal­ing when cross­ing the area. We also had hel­mets with four stick­ers that indi­cat­ed which areas we were per­mit­ted to enter, ensur­ing our safe­ty on site. Wear­ing the appro­pri­ate con­struc­tion uni­form and gear was manda­to­ry dur­ing our time there, mak­ing this a com­plete­ly new expe­ri­ence for me and quite pro­fes­sion­al in nature.

For about a month, I would vis­it the site to take pho­tographs and, in the process, I was able to build rela­tion­ships with the work­ers. I often sat with them, enjoyed cof­fee, and engaged in casu­al con­ver­sa­tions. Dur­ing these moments, if I noticed some­thing inter­est­ing, I would cap­ture it, adding a per­son­al touch to my work. Grad­u­al­ly, my pho­tog­ra­phy approach became more people-centric.

Ini­tial­ly, when I pho­tographed the work­ers, they would look direct­ly into the cam­era lens. How­ev­er, over time, they became accus­tomed to my pres­ence and con­tin­ued with their work, ignor­ing the cam­era. This shift result­ed in more nat­ur­al and real­is­tic pho­tographs, cap­tur­ing the essence of their labor.

MF: Doc­u­ment­ing the rebuild­ing of the World Trade Cen­ter came with unique chal­lenges. What were some of the most dif­fi­cult moments you faced dur­ing the project, and how did you man­age them?

VR: While I was doc­u­ment­ing the World Trade Cen­ter, the most chal­leng­ing aspect I faced was my lan­guage skills — or lack there­of. There were engi­neers from Amer­i­ca, Africa, and oth­er coun­tries, but the com­mon lan­guage of com­mu­ni­ca­tion was Eng­lish, and my Eng­lish was quite poor. Ini­tial­ly, I felt com­plete­ly lost. How­ev­er, I enrolled in Eng­lish lan­guage class­es, which helped me improve a bit. With no oth­er option, I ded­i­cat­ed myself to prac­tic­ing and, over time, my Eng­lish steadi­ly got bet­ter. Although it was a chal­lenge, I grad­u­al­ly over­came it through con­sis­tent practice.

MF: After achiev­ing glob­al recog­ni­tion, you returned to work with chil­dren from Salaam Baalak Trust for your “Bet­ter Life” What inspired this deci­sion, and how did it feel to recon­nect with your roots?

VR: When I returned to India, the project I had in mind was ini­tial­ly named „Bet­ter Life.“ How­ev­er, it lat­er became „Home Street Home,“ which cul­mi­nat­ed in my book pub­lished in 2013. In „Home Street Home,“ I aimed to depict my life in the shel­ter home through pho­tographs of oth­er chil­dren. My life in the shel­ter home was bet­ter; that’s why the ini­tial title was „Bet­ter Life.“ Nonethe­less, since the shel­ter home felt like a true home to me, the title even­tu­al­ly changed to „Home Street Home.“ I want­ed to show­case that my life there was a bet­ter life.

MF: What advice would you give to young artists fac­ing chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances, espe­cial­ly those who might not have access to resources, but dream of achiev­ing suc­cess in the cre­ative field?

VR: I would like to encour­age young artists to prac­tice dili­gent­ly because prac­tice leads to improve­ment, and with improve­ment, oppor­tu­ni­ties will nat­u­ral­ly come your way. It may take time, as each per­son faces their own chal­lenges, but if you per­sist in your efforts, oppor­tu­ni­ties will even­tu­al­ly present them­selves. It’s impor­tant to remain ded­i­cat­ed and work for an extend­ed period.

MF: Men­tor­ship is a core aspect of the May­bach Foun­da­tion. Can you talk about the men­tors who have influ­enced your career?

VR: The men­tor­ship offered by the May­bach Foun­da­tion has played a cru­cial role in my achieve­ments. I cred­it much of my suc­cess to the guid­ance I have received. My first men­tor, Anay Mann, taught me about pho­tog­ra­phy, and his influ­ence has been sig­nif­i­cant in my life. Through­out dif­fer­ent stages of my jour­ney, I have had sev­er­al oth­er men­tors, all of whom have been instru­men­tal in guid­ing my path.

MF: Your ear­ly solo exhi­bi­tion, „Street Dream,“ reflects your unique per­spec­tive on life in urban envi­ron­ments. How did your per­son­al jour­ney influ­ence the themes you explore in your work?

My solo exhi­bi­tion, „Street Dream,“ offered a unique per­spec­tive shaped by my men­tor’s advice to explore var­i­ous books and exhi­bi­tions. While attend­ing these exhi­bi­tions, I noticed that many of them revolved around spe­cif­ic themes. This inspired me to work with a theme for my own work. At that time, I had lim­it­ed funds to sup­port my trav­el and pho­tog­ra­phy expens­es, so I pon­dered what direc­tion to take.

Ini­tial­ly, I con­sid­ered street pho­tog­ra­phy, but soon real­ized it was a com­mon genre pur­sued by many. That’s when the idea struck me: why not show­case my own life through street pho­tog­ra­phy? I decid­ed to reflect my expe­ri­ences by cap­tur­ing the lives of chil­dren under 18, as I was once in their posi­tion, liv­ing on the streets. My goal was to por­tray my child­hood through the lens of oth­er chil­dren, tak­ing pic­tures in the same places and reflect­ing the man­ner in which I had lived. Through their sto­ries, I expressed my own life on the streets.

MF: Can you tell us about a pho­to­graph you’ve tak­en that holds spe­cial mean­ing to you and why?

VR: I con­sid­er myself a doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er. My spe­cial­ty lies in doc­u­ment­ing a sub­ject through pho­tographs over an extend­ed peri­od, often span­ning five, eight, or even ten years. This long-term approach is what makes my pho­tos spe­cial and mean­ing­ful. That is the type of pho­tog­ra­phy I pursue.

MF: Where do you see your­self in 10 years?

VR: In the next ten years, I envi­sion myself as an estab­lished pho­tog­ra­ph­er, rec­og­nized among the good pho­tog­ra­phers in the field. By „estab­lished,“ I mean that my work will be appre­ci­at­ed by audi­ences for its depth, thought­ful­ness, and mean­ing­ful mes­sages. This is the type of pho­tog­ra­phy I am pas­sion­ate about. I believe that my work­ing style will play a key role in achiev­ing my goal of being acknowl­edged as a rep­utable and accom­plished photographer.

MF: Thank you, Vicky, for tak­ing the time to share your sto­ry with us. We are very proud to have been part of your jour­ney and will be fol­low­ing your path in the future. We look for­ward to see­ing what’s next for you and wish you con­tin­ued suc­cess ahead.