Dinesh Khanna

What I love most as a photographer is patterns, forms and colours just falling in place organically.

– Dinesh Khanna

Dinesh Khanna is an Indian contemporary photographer based in Gurgaon, Haryana. A colorist by nature, his picture-perfect photographs capture the beauty and essence of India. In the early years of his career, Dinesh sold calculators in Chawri Bazaar, quality-checked garments in a Faridabad factory, and cleared tables as a busboy in an Upper Eastside Bar in New York. He believes that these jobs were as good an education, if not better in some ways than the Economics degree he got from Delhi University. This rather chequered career path was due to his teenage belief that if he followed in his photographer father’s footsteps, he would be yet another victim of the Indian caste system. This rebellion further led him to a 12-year long career as a client servicing executive in advertising where he finally achieved ‘burn-out’ at the ripe old age of 33 years and which left him with a burning desire to become a professional photographer. So in 1990 he finally succumbed to what can probably be blamed on genetic coding – the desire to make images – both as a means of making a living and as a form of creative expression. The last 30 years have seen him involved in creating images for advertising, editorial, and corporate clients, specifically in the area of food, still-life, people, and interiors. Dinesh is a managing trustee of Nazar Foundation, and one of the co-founders of the Delhi Photo Festival and was also a photography curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival. He also teaches photography in various institutions and conducts workshops. He is a Director of the Dhrish Academy of Photography at the Museo Camera, in Gurgaon and Consultant with Sahapedia.

His photo-books include Bazaar (2001), Living Faith (2004), President’s Bodyguard (2015), Life in Rashtrapati Bhawan (2016). Dinesh Khanna’s Bhagoria series is a noted one. Bhagoriya is a tribal festival that takes place in Madhya Pradesh and people from adjoining villages come to one particular place where they all sing, dance, and treat themselves to games and rides on the fairground. While walking around, he had noticed a couple of make-shift photo studios and stepped in to see what was going on. Fascinated by the coloured backdrops and the clothes people were wearing, he approached photographer and with his permission took photos of the people he was shooting.

Published on February 13, 2021
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