Sankalp Shukla Wins Best Photography Prize At Rome International Movie Awards 2021
Mumbai, 19th July 2021: Sankalp Shukla, a photographer, poet, storyteller, professor and senior communication professional from Mumbai, photography series on “Silence depicted through body language” won the Best Photography prize at the Rome International Movie Awards 2021; an IMDb listed festival celebrating films and photography from all across the world. The film festival accoladed various films from the USA, Sweden, Germany, UAE, Japan, UK, France but Sankalp’s work from India was the only project to have won in the photography category.
The photo series on silence expressed deeply embedded pain running through the sinking pulse of living bodies as mental agony. The fight within of identification and struggle of real me embellished with fear and anxiety, coupled with despair and sorrow, like dying a slow death while you pretend to live happy in this uncanny world. The scars, body language, and emptiness are the epitome of grief. The stereotype society forces you to live a life that is norms-driven and not desires-driven.
A journalism graduate from Pune and a postgraduate in Corporate Communications from Xavier Institute of Communications Mumbai, his photography journey started in 2006 from his graduation college and evolved learning in-depth from his mentor Mr J B Mistry, Dean of Photography and Film Studies at Xavier’s Mumbai. Their professional photography career started in the year 2010 when he freelanced for The Times of India for a year as a writer and photojournalist and the rest is history.
Recently his photography series on Pandemic also won at Los Angeles Photography Awards 2021 in the pandemic category. His photography works have been exhibited in Louvre Museum Paris, London, Moscow, New York, Italy, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles and many galleries in India. Winner of Sar Icon Awards 2021 for photography, his work has been selected in Coffee Table books.
Photography helps him in writing and creating stories through poetry.
A published author of more than two Hindi poetry books & State Level winner in Creative writing, Sankalp was recently awarded the 100 rising authors award of India. His writings are reflections of society and he plans to launch two more Hindi poetry books by 2022. He won the prize for his poetry on Kashmir and Babri Masjid.
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He believes that artists are a vehicle for expressing universal emotion. Creative thinkers and artists must provide their communities joy, interaction, inspiration, and also give thoughtful critique to political, economic and social systems — pushing communities to engage thoughtfully and make steps towards social progress.
He uses photography and poetry as a medium to create, communicate, and make a social impact on society.
Penchant for teaching keeps him busy at the weekends. He is a visiting faculty at Xavier’s Institute of Communications and Don Bosco Mumbai for teaching Communications to post-graduation students.
On the professional front, he has worked with companies like Raymond, Times of India, BASF and is currently working as senior communication professional in the communications industry.
Discussing his motivation he mentions that my mother and my wife are my biggest inspirations in life. I inherited poetry from my mother and my writing is dedicated to her. He credits his wife Mansi for all the good happenings in his life. His mother is also a poet and his wife Mansi is a World Records holder and National Level winner in abstract painting.
A part-time cook on Sunday’s, he enjoys experimenting with non-veg food but his speciality remains murg musaallam.
Talking about his future, Sankalp along with his wife Mansi plans to start a production house and work on ad films and documentaries.
