By Sridhar Vankayala

On October 31st New York City again hosted the 4th Annual Lucie Awards program held at the American Airlines Theatre in Times Square. The Lucies – the world’s most prestigious awards ceremony honoring the greatest achievements in photography – conferred awards in categories ranging from Lifetime Achievement, to Visionary, to Achievement in Fashion, Advertising and Fine Art. As 2003 honoree Douglas Kirkland put it, “The movie industry has its Oscars and the photography community has its Lucies.”

Amongst various winners was Miss Ghada Khunji who won the 2006 Discovery of the Year Award, chosen from among finalists including Luke Duval; Brian Murphy; Tomas Lee; Antony Crossfield; Kei Ohnaka; and Ivan Bajic.

Born in Bahrain, and having lived in England and in the US, she is quite the interesting personality. EGO columnist Sridhar Vankayala recently got the opportunity to catch up with her after a photo auction at Daniel Cooney Art Gallery that she was part of, to understand what makes her tick and why she does what she does.

How did you get into this profession? Did you get into it as a hobby and then came to realize that this is what you wanted to do?
I guess I was one of those people that always had a camera in her hand. In fact I have this picture of myself at the age of 6 with a camera in my hand. The fascination with photography started at quite a young age for me and it continued to grow. When I was 12, my sister got married, and I was there with a camera in my hand. After the wedding, people told me that my pictures were better than the ones the professional photographer took. So, photography was something I’ve always been interested in from a young age. But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. My parents wanted me to do business. When I started college I took business, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I soon quit business and became an English major. That too didn’t appeal to me too much, so I took up public relations. One of my public relations course involved photography. The moment I went back into the dark room after all these years, I fell back in love with photography. Being back in the dark room got me all excited again - putting a print in the developer and watching the print come up gave me goose bumps. And I guess it was then that I realised how much photography meant to me.

Once I finished my degree in Public Relations I decided to move back to Bahrain and take up photography. But the moment I moved back the Gulf War started so I came back to the US and started college at Parsons School of Design, NY. Here I started off as a fashion photographer but soon got bored of it. It just didn’t feel right for me. I then decided to try something at the other end of the spectrum. I decided to take my photography skills and do documentaries - something that made me no money, but made me feel happy. And documentaries is what I’ve been doing until now.

Documentaries as you mentioned don’t make you a lot of money. How did you balance this life style with the need to be financially stable? Did this concern you?
Yes it did concern me. But fortunately I had a family that was willing to financially support me and gave me enough resources to start my career. However, I did eventually realize that I needed to start earning a living. I began working at different photolabs where I honed in my skills and tried my hand at printing and photography. Then the digital came and I lost my job as a printer, but the whole experience nevertheless sharpened my skills as a photographer. Loosing my job made me re-think what I wanted to do. I eventually decided to take my pictures that were just lying around in my closet and started getting involved in competitions. People always told me that my pictures were very good and that I should do something with them. So I decided to take part in competitions and see what came of it. Soon I started wining competitions which came along with some financial rewards, 100-200 dollars here and there. And now that I’ve won the Lucie’s Award, it has helped raise my profile more, and has opened up more avenues of financing which were previously closed to me.

Your Dominican series has a lot of pictures that represent real life and portrays raw emotion. Did you find yourself getting emotionally attached to your subjects?
Absolutely - I feel everything. When I travel I don’t want to be a tourist and hang out in nice touristy spots. I’m the kind of person that would rather be with the local people in any location, live and understand them at the grass roots. I find that more real. I believe in real human contact, and if you look at my pictures, no matter how happy or sad they are, they always have pride. When ever I go back to the locations I’ve photographed, the people there always treat me with respect because I treated them with respect and see them as equals. You’ll see that almost all my pictures portray people, even my still life pictures tend to have some aspects of people incorporated into it. I’m always very close to my subjects when I’m photographing them. I find that a lot more personal.

Your photos tend to represent real life. What do you think of art or artists that use sex or sexual innuendos in their art?
It doesn’t really bother me to be honest. It's not something that tempts me. But then again, if I had to do work on a theme that dealt with sex, I would surely do it. However, I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything like that yet. Topics involving sex are not areas that I shy away from at all.

What are your next steps? Any future plans?
Well, thank god for the recognition (Lucie’s Award). Now that I have this recognition, I feel that I have a responsibility to use this limelight. I want to pick topics that will help people around me. I want to do a piece on women and men workers in foreign countries like in Bahrain. For example, back in Bahrain, you have poor women and men that work for rich families and these poor people are often abused and taken advantage of. I’d like to go back and start photographing just their faces and putting a story to it.

I don’t think recognition has made me big headed. It's really an acclamation that now lets me help others. I’m also thinking about going back to Cuba. I met a lot of people when I went to Cuba before and I promised them that I’d come back and help out where I can. Like, this great artist I met in Cuba, I decided to make a CD of his music for him. I also took pictures in his house and put together a CD cover for him. Back in the day I didn’t have the money, but now that I have fame and financial resources, I plan on going back to Cuba and giving the CD to him. For me it’s about giving back to the people and the places I was in.

Your pictures are in black and white. Is this a conscious choice?
Well, not really. I do have colored pictures too. But for me, the choice of color, or black and white, is determined by where I go. It's not a pre-determined choice. Places like the Dominican or New York to me are better represented in black and white. Cuba on the other hand would be in color. The choice of color for me is determined by the location I’m in and what I want to convey through that picture.

What do you aim to get out of this (photography)? What drives you to do what you do?
My drive is not money or fame. I even hate doing interviews like this (laughing). My goal is to put names and faces to people that are not heard and need it.

Since Sridhar's interview with Ghada she has gone on to win more awards, with her recent accomplishment being the grand prize winner at the American Photo Images of the Year competition. As part of this, Ghada also received a prize package provided by Microsoft worth more than $15,000.