Raghubir singh photography biography samples

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Singh believed that color was inseparable from the essence of India, where hues saturate every aspect of daily life, from the saris worn by women to the markets bustling with fruits, spices, and fabrics. Over the course of his illustrious career, Singh not only transformed the perception of Indian photography but also redefined the global standards of color photography.

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Early Life and Inspirations

Growing up in Jaipur, Singh was surrounded by the rich heritage and vibrant colors of Rajasthan.

His images tell stories of resilience, tradition, and modernity colliding in a rapidly changing society. His style was deeply influenced by Mughal painting and Rajasthani miniature paintings, where too within the overall framework, individual sections display autonomy.

In his early work Singh focused on the geographic and social anatomy of cities and regions of India.

Background

Raghubir Singh was born in 1942 in Jaipur, into an aristocratic Rajput family.

Singh lived and worked in London, Paris and New York but made his best known work in his homeland. His grandfather was commander-in-chief of the Jaipur Armed Forces, his father a Thakur or feudal landowner of Khetri (now in Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan).

Singh’s work is not just a chronicle of Indian life; it is a testament to the power of photography as an art form and a tool for cultural preservation.

Singh’s Philosophy on Photography

For Singh, photography was more than just capturing images; it was a way of understanding the world. Deeply influenced as he was by modernism, he liberally took inspiration from Rajasthani miniatures as well as Mughal paintings, and Bengal, a place where he felt the fusion of western modernist ideas and vernacular Indian art took place for the first time, evident in practitioners of the Bengal school, and also the humanism of the filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who later became a close friend.

This turned out to be unsuccessful, but by this time, he had started to take photographs. He transformed the way India was perceived by both Indians and the world, using color as his primary language to tell stories that were deeply personal yet universally relatable. This early exposure to the interplay of light, color, and architecture laid the foundation for his photographic journey.

He believed in immersing himself in the environment, letting the story unfold naturally. Though his early work was inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson's documentary-style photographs of India, he chose colour as his medium, responding to the vivid colours of India, and over time adapted western techniques to Indian aesthetics.

He later moved to Hong Kong and started doing photo features for National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times..

ingh published 14 well-received books on the Ganges, Calcutta, Benares, his native Rajasthan, Grand Trunk Road, and the Hindustan Ambassador car.[7] Today his work is part of the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, amongst others

Singh belongs to a tradition of small-format street photography, pioneered by photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom he met in 1966 and observed for a week while the latter was working in Jaipur, and who, with Robert Frank, was to have a lasting impact of his work; however, unlike them, he chose to work in color, as for him this represented the intrinsic value of Indian aesthetics.

Exhibitions of his work in prestigious galleries, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, brought Indian street photography to the forefront of the global art scene.

Legacy and Influence

Singh’s influence extends far beyond his own body of work.

During his career he worked with National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker and Time.

In 1985 he was appointed the first Bradford Fellow in Photography.

It must be an expression in itself, not an explanation.” This philosophy is evident in every frame he captured.

Conclusion

Raghubir Singh’s contribution to photography is immeasurable.