Top Fashion Photographers in India

This post about top indian leading Fashion Photographers.

Prabuddha Dasgupta  was a noted fashion and fine-art photographer from India. Known for his iconic

black and white imagery, he had an extended career, primarily as a fashion photographer Training, spanning more than three decades. Amongst his books, he is most known for Women (1996), a collection of portraits and nudes of urban Indian women. 

Prabuddha Dasgupta was born in Kolkata in September 1956. His father was noted sculptor, Pradosh Das Gupta., who was the curator of National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Delhi from 1957 to 1970, and the family stayed within the premises. In 1970s, his father moved to Jangpura Extension, a well-known artists’ colony in Delhi, where he stayed for most of his career. He graduated in History from Hindu College, University of Delhi, 1973-1975. 

Though he was he trained as a historian, he started his career as copywriter with advertising agency Everest, before turning to photography full-time in late 1980s. During his career as a commercial photographer, which took off with a campaign for Blue Lagoon Jeans, Dasgupta worked with the first generation of Indian supermodels like Madhu Sapre, Feroze Gujral, Shyamolie Verma and Mehr Jesia. According to historian, William Dalrymple, with whom he worked on his book Edge of Faith, “Rohit Khosla and Rohit Bal, along with Prabuddha, invented glamour in India.”  A self-taught photographer, he received the Yves Saint Laurent grant for photography in 1991,  for his photograph of model Feroze Gujral, shot for designer Suneet Varma.

Gautam Rajadhyaksha (September 16, 1950 – September 13, 2011) was one of India's leading fashion photographers, and was based in Mumbai, India He was one of India's best known celebrity portraitists, having photographed almost all the icons of the Indian Film industry.

Born in Mumbai, Rajadhyaksha was educated at St. Xavier's High School, Fort, and obtained his degree in Chemistry atSt. Xavier's College, Mumbai, where he later also taught for two years. He is the cousin of noted novelist Shobha De.

Having completed his diploma in advertising and public relations, Rajadhyaksha joined the photo services department of Lintas India Ltd, a leading advertising agency in 1974, and eventually becoming the head of the department. During his 15 year stint, he participated in the creation of milestone ad campaigns, while continuing his childhood passion of photography over the weekends.

His first encounter with fashion photography happened 1980, when he happen to shoot pictures of actress Shabana Azmi (a college mate), Tina Munim and Jackie Shroff, and his passion for portraiture photography was lit, eventually he left his advertising job in 1987, and took up commercial photography full-time, and soon started doing product campaigns, media assignments and fashion portfolios. 

While he was still working for the Lintas, as a copywriter, Shobha De his cousin invited him to write for her magazine, 'Celebrity', soon after started shooting photographs for his articles, this got him attention and soon acclaim as a glamour photographer, and before long he started working for other magazines as well, including The Illustrated Weekly of India, and film magazines like Stardust, Cineblitz and Filmfare. 

Tarun Khiwal (born 1967) is a noted Indian fashion and commercial photographer, based in Delhi. An engineer by education, he left his first job in 1989, and apprenticed with photographers, Hardev Singh, Atul Kasbekar and Prabuddha Dasgupta, before starting out on his own in 1995. 

He was awarded the 2005 Hasselblad Masters Award, given by the Hasselblad Foundation. He is the first and only Indian recipient of the award. He was also featured in Tom Ang's book, The Complete Photograher as one of the world's 20 Top Professional Photographers. In the Year 2012 , Broncolor the Swiss manufacturer of leading photography lights , had their annual limited edition calendar dedicated solely to his work. Experimental fashion images created by him, adorned each month of the calendar.

He has also received various other awards for his contribution to the field of fashion photography in India. Some of the other awards he has received are : MTV STYLE LYCRA AWARD 2004 ASIAN PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD: PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2005 EPSON MASTERS WORLDWIDE EPSON PRO PROGRAMME MARIE CLAIRE FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2009 L'OFFICIEL LUXURY AWARD, 2008 F AWARD - FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2005.

Khiwal was born in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh and grew up in Lucknow, where his father was an Indian Railways officer. He started taking photographs at age 15, after his father gave him a Pentax K1000 camera. Growing up, he wanted to become a painter, however neither it nor photography was consider financially viable career option by his father, thus ended up studying mechanical engineering at the Institute of Tool Room Training, Lucknow, where he studied for the next four years.

After completing his education, Khiwal started his career in early 1989, designing press and die casting tools at West India Power Equipments Pvt. Ltd in Jagdishpur, an industrial town near Lucknow. However, finding him unable to apply himself well at work, even eight months after joining, the technical director of the company, gave him the book,The Magic of Thinking Bigto read. The book impacted him deeply, a few days later, he returned the book and also left the job.

Thus, he shifted base to Delhi in November 1989, where his parents had a small flat. Although disappointed by his choice, seeing his enthusiasm, his father soon decided to sell the flat and buy him a Nikon F90x. Next, after a few months of pursuing he managed to gain apprenticeship with renowned architectural and interior photographer, Hardev Singh. This was followed by apprenticeships with fashion photographers, Atul Kasbekar and Prabuddha Dasgupta. With the latter, he apprenticed for two years, this left a deep impact of photography, as he later recounted in an interview, “ (with Dasgupta) I discarded all the notions I had about photography.” In 1995, he started to work independently, initially with magazines like Society and First City. This gradually led to his entry to the fashion industry, over the next few years.

Jagdish Mali (18 January 1954—13 May 2013) was an Indian fashion and film photographer. He was the father of Bollywood actress Antara Mali. He was one of the most celebrated photographers of the 1970s till the 1990s. In his career he took images of celebrities like Rekha, Anupam Kher, Irrfan Khan,Manisha Koirala, Shabana Azmi etc. 

Mali was born on 18 January 1954. He was not interested in school and studies and from his childhood he had a dream to become a professional photographer. He was brought up in the middle-class family living in Bandra East and his father was an artist. 

Mali worked for the cine magazine Cine Blitz in the 1980s. During this period he photographed actress Rekha for a span of about 10 years. His pictures of the actress are considered the best and have been selected to feature on the cover of the magazine. His other notable shots include that of actor Aamir Khan for his film Ghulam (1998) where Khan is seen in a black and white photograph packing a punch. Actress and social activist Kavita Radheshyam credits her career's launch to Mali.

Mali's work has been compared and appreciated with his peers like Gautam Rajadhyaksha and Ashok Salian. He had worked with various celebrities like Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Nina Gupta, Manoj Bajpai. He also created portfolios of actors like Luv Sinha after his father Shatrughan Sinha insisted.

Dabboo Ratnani is a leading Indian fashion photographer,known for his annual calendar which has become a highly notable showbiz event in India since its first publication in 1999. He is the cover photographer for all leading magazines like Cosmopolitan, Filmfare, Hi Blitz, Ok India, Elle, Verve,Femina, The Man and Better Homes and Gardens. In 2006, he was in the jury for the Miss India contest.

Born on December 25, he practiced his skill as a young man in Mumbai training together with Naren Sundar. He has been working independently since 1994.

Ratnani is one of the prominent portrait and celebrity photographers in the Indian cinema. His induction into the world of photography came about largely by chance. Films got Ratnani editorial work, which in turn got him model portfolios, which led him to advertising. His work has been used for film advertising and publicity campaigns.

Ratnani's best known work is his annual calendar. He has helped create a trend of collectible celebrity calendars in India, after the fashion of the Pirelli Calendar. He is one of a number of photographers with trademark calendars widely covered in the media. Over the years top Bollywood stars have appeared on his calendar. Every year the launch of the calendar becomes a major event featuring top celebrities, 24 of them for each year. 18 of the 24 celebrities, including Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Bipasha Basu, Arjun Rampal and Abhishek Bachchan, are a constant feature on his calendar. For the 2012 edition, the photographer shot a video with some behind-the-scenes moments for each celebrity, which were made available on YouTube. 

He also has worked in advertising for brands like Nokia with Shahrukh Khan, Movado with Harbhajan Singh, Acer computers with Hrithik Roshan, Boroplus with Kareena Kapoor, Belmonte suitings with Shahrukh Khan, Provogue, Asian Paints & lays with Saif ali Khan, 7 Up (with Malika Sherawat), Airtel (with Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Saurav Ganguly, Amitabh B perfume (with Amitabh Bachchan), Anmol, Bajaj, BPL Mobile, Citizen watches (with Kareena Kapoor), Coca Cola (with Hrithik Roshan and Aamir Khan), Compaq (with Shahrukh Khan), Dabur (with Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee and Riya Sen),Donear Suitings, Hyundai Santro (with Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta), ICICI Bank (with Amitabh Bachchan).

This Blog Post by JDPITAMPURA , For newcomers, who want to be start his career in Photographic world.