Working with rural communities to bring social change

My name is Prabas Kumar Sahoo, approaching 40, and I was born in Balasore, a coastal district of the East Indian state of Odisha. I’m a professional social developmental worker engaged in tribal and rural areas of Odisha and a few other states of India. I love capturing beautiful moments in rural and tribal life through my lens. Being not a professional photographer, my passion for capturing lifestyles brings me many stunning photographs.

I am highly inspired by Padmashree awardee Mr. Shree Sudharak Olwe, a Mumbai-based photographer.
Initially, I took photographs with my mobile phone and received many recognitions and awards from various social media platforms and organizations. I currently photograph rural social issues and daily life using my Fujifilm X-T200. My dream is to further explore and capture the daily lifestyles of rural and tribal people and showcase them to the wider world.

I find myself searching for things to photograph in everyone’s daily life. Everyone loves looking back at pictures. For me, being involved in the development sector, while working with the rural communities to bring social change and improve their quality of life, I always tried to capture to understand the realities at the grassroots level. I love capturing the big milestones like the newborn stage, birthdays, senior year, etc. Sometimes I find myself searching for smiles in many children’s life. I try and photograph lifestyle in the early morning hours because the sun is really bright to boost my photography.