Quezon City, 18 October 2011. Nishant Ratnakar, ACFJ alumnus from India, gained recognition at the recent Delhi Photo Festival, which featured his photojourn project entitled ‘Fistful of Dreams.’
His work tells a universal story of gender and color discrimination through the lives of Veena and her daugher Akila, and adopted five-year old child Palguni from Bangalore. Ratnakar utilizes pictures and digital projection to help create public opinion against gender and color discrimination. ‘Fistful of Dreams’ also focuses on the difficulties of dark girls finding adoptive parents in India.
Ratnakar who graduated in May 2011 from ACFJ’s photojournalism program, is a senior photographer at the Daily News and Analysis(DNA) in Bangalore.
Eye,the Indian Express sunday magazine, recently interviewed Ratnakar and an article on his black-and-white photojourn work formed part of a curtain-raiser article on the Delhi Photo festival.
In that interview, Ratnakar said, “As I grew older, I started noticing how people differentiate between people of different race and skin color, and how stereotypes were being built around them. So I thought of highlighting racial discrimination though a body of photographic work.”
