Most seeing portraits of the young girls in in my work from India think that they are boys, due to their short hair. This just so happens to be one of my favorite features, and makes for incredibly powerful portraits.
This specific one was made with Nirvana and his wonderful team at Nirvanavan Foundation. This was the fifth roll made on November 26 of 2013, while the team guided me through the villages in which they work. The foundation has set up schools for the children of the Nat and Kanjar Communities, in which traditional prostitution unfortunately thrives.
These very girls see on a daily basis the tragedy of the sex trade, watch their older sisters being sold by the men in their own families. Without the foundation this would be the only possibility for them as well. Nirvana and his team are doing the best that they can to present an alternative, and do so every single day without exception.
I admire and respect the path that they have chosen to walk, and hope to be there in the very near future alongside these incredible people.
Note: This image was made with a Hasselblad 555 ELD/180 mm combination onto Fuji Neopan Acros 100 ISO film.
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