The iconic Raghu Rai, the first Indian Magnum photographer and Emmanuel Lenain, the French Ambassador to India, will discuss their book featuring photographs of Paris taken by Rai and of India by the Ambassador, the result of shared passion and curiosity for each other’s countries and cultures. 

Raghu Rai qualified as a civil engineer and started photography at the age of 23 in 1965. He joined The Statesman newspaper as their chief photographer (1966 to 1976), and was then Picture Editor with Sunday—a weekly news magazine published from Calcutta (1977 to 1980). In 1972, impressed by Rai’s exhibition at Gallery Delpire, Paris, the legendary photographer Henri Cartier Bresson nominated him to Magnum Photos, the world’s most prestigious photographer’s cooperative. He was awarded the Padmashree in 1972, a civilian award given to a photographer for the body of works he produced on Bangladesh refugees and the war. In 1992, he was awarded ‘Photographer of the Year’ in the United States for the story Human Management of Wildlife in India published in National Geographic. In 2012, Raghu Rai created the Raghu Rai Center for Photography to share his 50 years of knowledge and experience with the young generations. In 2018, he was honoured by Lucie Foundation, New York as a Master of Photojournalism. He is the only photographer in the world to receive an ‘Academie Des Beaux Art’ Paris Awards 2019, one of the highest awards in photography ever given to a living photographer.

Emmanuel Lenain is a career diplomat who has taken part in peace negotiations in different countries, served in the US (New York and Washington) and China (Beijing and Shanghai) and advised two French Prime Ministers. In parallel, he has constantly maintained an extensive photography practice focusing on urban and social transformations. His works, all in black and white, have received many publications. His series on China, Les Grands Travaux, has been exhibited/screened at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris in 2016 and entered the collections of this leading institution. As an Ambassador of France, in Delhi, since 2019, he currently focuses on India and has just released a book In India/To France with celebrated Indian photographer, Raghu Rai.