India's master photographer Raghu Rai dies aged 83

Internationally acclaimed Indian master photographer Raghu Rai died on Sunday, his family announced. He was 83.

A construction engineer by training, Rai, born in a village in Pakistani Punjab before the partition of the Indian subcontinent, went on to become an iconic photographer documenting the complex social and political life of India.

Some of his best-known works include documenting the 1971 independence war of Bangladesh and India's worst industrial disaster, a 1984 gas leak in Bhopal that killed an estimated 25,000 people.

Rai won the inaugural Academie des Beaux-Arts Photography Award, and in 1972 received the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honours for his exceptional work.

"To the world, he was an incomparable master of photography, the visionary who captured the pulsating heart and soul of India," lawmaker Shashi Tharoor said in a tribute.

"Your vision will forever be the lens through which India is seen."
The photographer's family announced his death in a statement which paid tribute to "our beloved."

Known for portraits of India's political and social elite and photographing its culture and masses with equal alacrity, Rai published dozens of photo-books including on the iconic monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

His intimate portraits of Mother Teresa hold a particularly special place in Rai's work.
Rai was a member of Magnum Photo, nominated to the prestigious New York-based cooperative by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is known worldwide for his defining candid photography.

According to the Indian Express newspaper, Rai was introduced to photography by his photographer brother six decades ago and published his first picture, a donkey gazing straight into his camera, in The Times of London.

"He didn't just take photographs, he preserved our nation's memory," India's leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi said.

Rai later moved to photojournalism, working with some of the nation's best-known media houses of his time through the 1960s and 70s, before going solo in his quest to depict his vast country's complexity.

Rai's work spans shooting on film and digital formats, both black and white and colour.
Rai worked all his life in India, and once said: "I can never be true to my experiences without a camera."

Agence France-Presse