It was an opportunity encounter in 1996 after I first met Raghu Rai. I was first struck by his presence—each bodily and non secular. In these few moments, it was his quietness, his grace and mild stature that stayed with me. A towering determine, virtually Ray-like, that I discovered exhausting to attach with this huge physique of labor. I, as a photographer, know the bodily contortions we should pull, the dangers we should take and the delicate and wily manipulations we must be ready to utilise to make a compelling picture.
In these days, I was an aspiring filmmaker and it was the drama of the large display and the shifting picture that captivated me. Yet, I keep in mind, that in that second I was not simply in the presence of a “photographer” however somebody who had “seen” India, and I discovered that each fascinating and intimidating.
After greater than 20 years, I moved away from film-making and serendipitously turned a full time photographer. From sitting in a director’s chair with a crew of a whole lot round me to information, I was now alone with my ideas. Nobody to assist me to craft a picture. I needed to do it on their lonesome. And I all of the sudden realised that I was free.
Today, I come again to what I consider virtually all nice photographers really feel. First is that it is the noise and the bustle, the chaos and the insanity of life that silences the chattering thoughts, and that the best wielders of the lens do not see with their eyes, however with their hearts. As a lot as I consider expertise is a present from God, as a photographer, I additionally know simply how a lot bodily a observe it’s, how each mentally and bodily agile one must be to navigate the terrain of each geography, historical past and one’s personal thoughts.
And the true energy of Rai’s work is his personal invisibility. It’s usually confounding to think about how such a towering bodily presence was in a position to roam undetected by the world. But that is this the place all paths be a part of. A near-perfect stability of trustworthy toil, spiritual grounding and technical prowess. An ideal storm, so to talk.
Can there ever be one other Raghu Rai? Photography has definitely modified as has the world we reside in. The tales that each must and are being instructed are extra various with deeper and extra various views. Technology has each enabled and destroyed. But at its very coronary heart, images is the similar and all the time shall be, irrespective of what number of megapixels we’ve. Photography is about life itself–about how we work together with one one other. It is about mindfulness and being current, about the quietening of the thoughts and the discovery of the significance of 1’s work. Not in the second of its making however in the method historical past views it. Rai has proven us that above all issues, it’s persistence that’s the photographer’s best advantage. Patience in a single’s observe. And the lengthy wait to find which pictures will lastly endure.