Category Archives: Blog

Photo blog by Nishant Ratnakar

Mobile Phone Memories

Eyes of my lover. A mobile phone photograph. Christmas Eve. Mumbai, December 2011.

It was some ten to fifteen years ago, that I saw a mobile phone for the first time in my life. My dad had made his prized purchase – a huge handset (unsure if it was a Nokia or a Panasonic device) with a prepaid mobile phone connection. It not only had the ability of making and receiving phone calls, but it could also be used to send and receive text messages! It kind of made Pagers obsolete overnight. (But, I still thought pagers were cool)

Strange times they were. Mobile phone call rates in India were too expensive. I recollect that it was 8 Indian Rupees (INR) per minute for outgoing calls, and 4 INR for incoming calls (Yes, incoming calls weren’t free then!). Any caller who dialed dad’s phone number by mistake would face his wrath for sure!

Things changed drastically over the next twenty years. We are in the era of touch screens where my Blackberry curve 3G phone with a QWERTY keypad looks terribly outdated. But, the Blackberry Messenger in it, serves the purpose of keeping in touch with loved ones(Note: I can keep in touch, but I can’t really touch).

But, one of the important innovations that took place in mobile telephony was the addition of cameras to mobile devices. In the history of photography this was a landmark moment that led to greater democratization of the craft. Entry level barriers to owning a camera and practicing the craft, were brought down. Everybody who had access to a mobile phone  could now visually capture a slice out of their daily life and from their surroundings.

Not only did this technological innovation bring down the costs of owning a camera,  but it also meant that cameras shrunk in size. Instead of carrying bulky camera bodies, one could have a camera that fits the size of the palm of their hands. Today, at any given street there will be a camera in the pocket of every individual passing there. Wow! everyone can tell a story from their perspective.

Over the last years, I have traveled far and near to take time off from work. And I have intentionally left my bulky cameras behind. The idea was to unwind and soak in to surroundings, to learn new things, meet new people, and devote time to family and friends. But, the ‘hunter’ in me couldn’t be left at home.

I am a sucker for story-telling images. The more personal and intimate it gets, the better it is for me. I get a high out of daily life. With such an insane mind, could I stop from making images that I found a strong connection with? No way!

My mobile phones were my finest companions during all my travels. Earlier it used to be a Nokia 5800 MusicXpress. Then came the Blackberry curve 3G. They didn’t have great cameras when compared of many other phones of the day. The images from them seemed to be blurry and most of the time they appeared to be out of focus. Maybe that’s life – a lot of things in life are unclear and lack focus…

Together the two mobile phones became a tool for creating a personal visual journal. A large part of this journal is scattered across the web and in tiny memory cards. This journal doesn’t stop. It continues almost every other day as life gives plenty of moments that soak in. As per the world of jargon in photography, you can call it an ongoing personal project! Now and then, a leaf out of this journal surfaces on my Facebook album.

As the new year dawns, I look back into the bygone years through my mobile phone memories. They remind me of all the good times I’ve had, the people I’ve lost, and the people I’ve found. It seems like a jigsaw puzzle where I am putting together the pieces to see where I was, where I am now, and to where I’ve longed to go to.

Here, I’ve tried to collect and share some of the images from my mobile phone journal. Some are abstract, while some are what they seemed to be. Some of them have little captions and some have none.

Wishing everybody a very happy new year.  Let the year 2012 be filled with joy and prosperity.

P.S: Plan to create a mosaic/collage  out of some of these mobile phone memories and make prints on fine-art paper. stay tuned for updates on it.

(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. Alternately, you can even buy my Books/E-books. Or maybe even buy a fine-art print.)

flattr this!

Also posted in Personal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Bangalore Pride March 2011

 

A participant during the Bangalore Pride March. Sunday, 27th November 2011. © Nishant Ratnakar


The 4th annual Bangalore Pride March was held in Bangalore city on Sunday, 27th November 2011. The march was held from Thulasi park to City Town hall and saw huge participation from members of various sexual orientations. This year the march was held as part of Bangalore Pride and Karnataka Sexual Minorities Rights festival, which was held from November 19th to 27th. Pride march is held across cities of the world as a symbol of resistance against oppression faced by Queer movement.

Last year, the queer festival had held a group exhibition titled as, ‘Body Politics.’ As part of this exhibition I had showcased images from my project In the life of Romal. This year there was no such group photography exhibition, but there were a series of events held as part of the festival, and all of them culminated in the pride march.

Visually, pride marches are always a colourful event. The attire, the flags, the banners – everything about the pride march is bright and loud. And with the march taking place in Indian streets, I believe it makes it even more colourful. Pride marches, also knows as gay parades, are definitely a feast for a street photographer.

Below, I share a portfolio of images from this year’s pride march.

A selection of these photographs are available for licensing worldwide via Demotix news agency. Organizations can buy it via Demotix or write to me to use these images.

A set of photographs from this series are available as Open-edition fine-art prints. Visit my personal gallery online at sen6 to buy them. All photographs are printed on archival-quality matte papers. The framed prints are shipped to any location across India.

(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. Alternately, you can even buy my Books/E-books.)

flattr this!

Also posted in Photojournalism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The story behind my Embedded Eyes

 

Indian migrant Guddu Gupta at his shared accommodation in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Guddu hails from Ghorakpur town of India and works as a salesman in Cambodia. November 2008.

(This is the article that I wrote for “Un(T)ravel,” the April-July 2011 edition of OffbeatThe Alternative’s quarterly ezine celebrating alternative living. The Un(T)ravel edition of Offbeat can be viewed here.)

There is a calling in everyone’s life, and you ought to answer it – I personally believe that. I answered mine when I was creating software products inside an IT giant’s plush office in Bangalore. I wanted to change the world through my camera. Will I succeed in my mission?, is a question that can be answered in retrospective. But I believe that our world is changing every second, and what we say, see or do is a catalyst in shaping our planet’s future. Therefore photography is a catalyst for change too.

So, I set about travelling with a camera as a photojournalist. I soon realised that the camera had been democratized in my era and everyone who was travelling had a camera in their hands. It was good to see so many catalysts.

I recollect an incident in the year 2008 when I was at Siem Reap, Cambodia, on a fellowship. As part of a documentary photography workshop held during the Angkor Photography Festival, I was documenting the lives of Indian migrants living and working across Siem Reap. Most of them were men from Gorakhpur making a living as travelling salesmen. Their families lived back in India.

I was taken by my source to an area where many of them lived as a group in rented rooms. They were glad to receive a visiting Indian. The hospitality however changed the moment I told them that I was documenting the lesser known portions of the Indian diaspora. One of them told me something in Hindi that roughly translated to, “Sir, you are from the media. And media shows only negative things about us. Your stories will finally appear according to the whims and fancies of the newspaper. We are sorry but we don’t want to be photographed.” I was taken aback but I obliged. We sat there for the rest of the afternoon drinking cola and discussing life and longing.

It was a watershed moment for me. The problem was not with my identity of being a photographer, but it was with my identity of being part of the mainstream media, a catalyst I had till then believed would bring positive influence to a changing world. It was no longer trusted by the oppressed. The media landscape had changed. Fresh journalists were often indoctrinated with the idea of ‘making the important sound interesting’. But, most of the time it turned out to be ‘making the silly sound as it were really important’.

Absolute truth (it never was) has become a battle between perspectives. And all too often, the perspective of the protagonists seems to be getting lost somewhere. As a visual story-teller I am committed to giving a voice to these perspectives. How do I do that? I found an answer in embedded journalism.

Embedded journalism is often thought of as a way to present wartime stories from the perspective of the government by embedding journalists in army units. But if used intelligently, it can do wonders to this world. One should look at the works of late Tim Hetherington (he was recently killed in Libya) – he brought out perspectives of soldiers fighting the battle till the last mile. These are voices lost in every war; all that we hear otherwise is a military spokesperson addressing the media at a press conference.

If you are a photographer visiting new places, I ask you to engage with the people you photograph. Communities, places and festivals in the developing world hold a lot more value than just being ‘exotic’ subjects. Photographers of the past, the tourism industry and colonial agendas have done harm by capturing stories with the aim of only making things sound attractive. Unfortunately this tradition is being followed by present day photographers without understanding its adverse effects.

Since 2008, I have been a part of the lives of people I document. And it has been an enriching experience. For the last one year, I have followed the life of a 5-year-old dark-skinned girl from the day she was adopted by a family comprising a single woman and another adopted daughter. I have spent little time shooting, and more time understanding their lives. I have spent time playing hide and seek, teaching “2+2=4”, wiping tears, laughing at jokes, listening to rhymes, getting breakfast, cutting apples and listening to serious discussions in the last one year. This has helped me become a better messenger of their story that I tell through my camera. I hope this can be a catalyst in the change that I hope for.

This article first appeared in Un(T)ravel, the April-July 2011 edition of Offbeat, The Alternative’s quarterly ezine celebrating alternative living. The Un(T)ravel edition can be viewed here.

(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. )


flattr this!

Also posted in Education, Photojournalism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

10 Dollars discount on Fistful of Dreams

 

The cover of the book "Fistful of Dreams: An Adopted Girl's Journey"

Many thanks to everyone who has supported Fistful of Dreams project in various ways. From sharing the original multimedia and letting it go viral over social networks , to sharing & buying the Book version of Fistful of Dreams, and to even sharing & downloading the Fistful of  Dreams E-book, the online community and patrons of social documentary photography have supported me in their humble capacities.

There is a good news for others who haven’t yet been able to buy the Fistful of Dreams book and/or have had some issues with the pricing. In keeping up with the Spirit of giving season of November month, Blurb.com – the printers of the book are offer a 10 US Dollars discount on the book for all the orders placed in the November month.

To get the 10$ discount, please follow the below steps.

  1. Visit the link www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2318235 to preview the sample pages from the book and to buy it.
  2. Chose between Soft-cover and Hardcover version of the book and proceed to checkout.
  3. Select the Shipping address and options and continue to checkout page
  4. At the checkout page use BIGTEN as the Promo/Gift code ( BIGTEN in uppercase letters only).
  5. And click on Apply Code to get 10 $ discount on the bill.
  6. And complete the payment process

Alternately, below is the preview of the book. Click on the Shopping cart symbol at the bottom. And then follow the steps 2 to 6 mentioned above.

(Note: Offer is valid till November 30th, 2011 only.)


 

(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. )

flattr this!

Also posted in Photojournalism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Where do you see yourself 5 years from now

 

A little over five years after beginning my pursuit for happiness. At Regal Cinema, Colaba, Mumbai. October 2011.

I take a moment and look back into my last years at engineering college. During those days, Campus placements/recruitment was the hot topic among my friends. We were to soon graduate from one of the finest colleges in the country (R.V.C.E), and it was inevitable that most of us had a job in our hand even before we graduated. So the questions was not whether one would get a job. Instead, it was whether one would get a job in the sought after IT company.

And in this quest for the dream job, we would go through an ordeal of written tests, group discussions and personal interviews. The most common question during the interviews would be “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” I wonder why that was so important to have a definite answer to that question. I don’t even remember what my answer to that question was. And I guess the panelists who interviewed me wouldn’t remember it either.

Many people answered with clarity of their future positions in the IT industry. Team leader, Project Manager, Software Architect, etc were some of those answers. I don’t know if that was really their thought or an answer to impress the panelist to get a job. After graduation, almost everybody faces this question in nearly every job interview they face. When it comes to this question, there is very little room for innovation among panelists. But, one question asked to me was slightly modified, and it did question one important aspect about my work.

“Do you see yourself shooting at the age of eighty years?” asked Krishnaprasad (called KP among media circles), the former editor of Vijay Times (now defunct English daily), when I was showing to him my portfolio for a photographer job. “Yes,” I replied honestly. This was nearly five years back.

The point that KP tried to investigate was, if I was passionate enough to spend a lifetime doing photography. And this emphasis for passion is important in my honest opinion. One has to be passionate about the work he/she does. A smart-phone advertisement says “Do what you Love. Love what you do.” This is true. I wasn’t in love with my first job as a software professional. There was something else calling me out.

It has been little more than five years since Friday, 13th October 2006. It was my last day at a software company. I left the job to lead the life of a photographer. By the way, I didn’t even have a professional camera then.

In the last five years, I have held jobs as a photographer in newspapers, got few scholarships and fellowships to travel abroad and study photojournalism, won couple of awards for photography and film-making, made a documentary on a subject  that I was passionate about, published a book, left the job of a chief Photographer at a publication to go completely independent with my work, fell in love, broke my heart many times, laughed, cried, laughed again, finally met the woman I’d spend my life with, and eventually fell in love with her. As this year comes to an end, I will soon be getting engaged to her.

Five years back if somebody asked me the question on where I saw myself 5 years later, I wouldn’t have answered with the exact above details. I wouldn’t know how the five years would unfold. Nobody would know about their next five years in detail. And I think life would’ve been boring if we knew exactly how our future would be.

But, one thing I was always sure of five years back. I saw myself doing things I loved, things that I had my heart in, and things I was passionate about. I saw myself make decisions that I believed in, irrespective of their outcomes, and have no regrets. I saw myself listening to my heart and pursuing my dreams. That’s what I have done in the last five years.

Where do I see myself five years from now?

Five years from now, I still see myself continuing to do things that I love. Life, I love you.

 

(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. )

flattr this!

Also posted in Education, Personal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments