Dinesh Khanna | Kolkata

Photo © Dinesh Khanna-All Rights Reserved

I am surprised that I haven't featured the work of Dinesh Khanna since my post in March 2007. After all, he's the one who is quoted in having said "" Color is almost a language in India. It's in food, clothes, on walls, in architecture."  

He also happens to be one of the major forces of photography in India, and as a co-founder and Managing Trustee of Nazar Foundation, set up to promote photography as an art-form in India, he mentors young photographers. He is also a co-founder and one of the Creative Directors of the Biennale ‘Delhi Photo Festival,’ whose first event was extremely successfully in Oct. 2011...and will be in its second iteration in fall of 2013.

His resume is as long as it is diverse. You'll be as surprised -as I was- to read that he worked as a calculator salesman, garment quality checker and a busboy in New York's East Side before becoming the successful photographer that he is now.  But prior to that shift, he spent over a decade in advertising until he experienced what is sometimes termed "burn-out" at the age of 33. It was then he took up photography, and spent two decades creating images for the advertising, editorial and corporate fields, achieving a well deserved notoriety. 

Not content with these achievements, he produced two books – Bazaar and Living Faith..the culmination of over a decade of travelling through the traditional markets and religious centres of India. He's also working on his next book, Benaras: Everyday in Eternity which will be published in 2014.

I chose to feature his work of Kolkata; one of my very favorite cities in India. As you can see, his  photographs are remarkably well composed, extremely colorful and lovingly saturated...and emit the color of India...the pow! he so well describes. 

No question. A guru of photography.