Paolo Pellegrin - Bombay. Venditore di Fiori. 2005

Paolo Pellegrin. Bombay. Venditore di Fiori. 2005.

'Copyright 2006 Paolo Pellegrin / Magnum Photos / Contrasto' at the lower right corner. Total dimensions: 42,0 x 29,7 cm on semi-gloss paper. Good condition. Printed Lated, 2000's.

In this 2005 photograph, Paolo Pellegrin distills the pulse of Bombay into a single, charged encounter. A barefoot boy crosses between idling motorbikes at a traffic stop, cradling a bouquet of white flowers —fragile brightness against the dark geometry of asphalt, metal, and shadow. The image hangs in the delicate tension between movement and stillness, survival and innocence.

Pellegrin’s framing is surgical: the diagonal sweep of the street, the rearview mirror reflecting an anonymous driver, the blur of a passing motorcycle. Every element compresses the city’s restless energy into a moment where the child becomes both protagonist and symbol —a small, luminous figure navigating the vast machinery of urban life.

A core member of Magnum Photos and one of the defining voices of contemporary documentary photography, Pellegrin is known for his visceral visual language: high contrast, dramatic chiaroscuro, and an instinct for the human stories dwelling at the edges of conflict, migration, and social fracture. His work, spanning war zones to megacities, reveals the fragile dignity of people moving through systems larger than themselves.

This Bombay photograph echoes the sensibilities of Sebastião Salgado, Alex Majoli, James Nachtwey, and Raghu Rai —photographers who explored the intersection of hardship and resilience with uncompromising clarity.

A striking piece for collectors of humanist and street photography —a moment where the poetry of survival flickers amid the turbulence of a city that never stops moving.