Fulbright Scholarship

"‘Oh my child, you have a lot to learn.’ It was one of the first sentences that pierced my consciousness days after I arrived in India. In choosing to cover my own community, all the lines which were once in place, nicely, neatly writ­ten in the sand, have was­hed away. Photojournalist. Friend. Cynic. Believer. Listener. Lover. Documentarian. All emotions converge in every breath, in every word, in every action. The anxious energy that comes with every new experience can be exhausting but well worth it. I know not what this year will bring, but one thing is for certain: I have a lot to learn,” candidly essays photojournalist and multimedia producer Kainaz Amaria welcoming feedback on her website kainazamaria.com

Presently on a nine-month Fulbright Scholarship in Bombay, Amaria had originally planned to "visually document the Parsi community at a critical time in its history… The project’s goal is to uncover diverse Parsi voices in order to understand how gender roles and generational differences affect the preservation of the Parsi heritage and the Zarathushti faith,” noted a write-up on the former resident of San Francisco Bay Area in FEZANA Journal (winter 2009). After spending some months in India, the photojournalist has decided to focus on priests. The Scholarship sponsored by the United States Department of State aims to increase multicultural understanding through the exchange of knowledge and skills. Three years earlier she had won the Chips Quinn Scholarship that honors promising young journalists.

The "love of learning and passion for understanding the human condition led her to become a visual storyteller,” reports FEZANA Journal, referring to the three tenets of journalism that the young writer upholds: humanity, diversity and accuracy. In the course of her documentary work, she has traveled across the United States examining social issues such as the effects of coal mining in southeast Ohio and the public housing crises in New Orleans. Her visuals and multimedia pieces have earned her recognition like the College Photographer of the Year, Women in Photojournalism, and from professional bodies/meets like the Atlanta Photojournalism Conference, the National Press Photographers Association Multimedia Contest, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and the South Asian Journalists Association.

With a BA in international relations and political science from Boston University and an MA in photography from the School of Visual Communication, Ohio University (OU) she proceeded to gain work experience as a graduate teaching assistant and content producer for the OU web magazine Soul of Athens. She briefly worked as a staff photographer/intern for community newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area including The Menlo Park Almanac, The Daily News and The Palo Alto Weekly, notes her blog. Photographic and political internships had led her to St Petersburg Times, Florida, U.S.News & World Report in Washington, the Journal Star in Nebraska, the House of Commons in London and the Senator Edward Kennedy’s office in Boston. She also had an opportunity to attend and instruct at the Missouri Photo Workshop, the Fall Workshop at Syracuse University and the Eddie Adams Workshop.