Instagram is one of the largest photo sharing platforms on the internet. It has more than five million users logging in everyday to share anything and everything from pictures of their first meal of the day to photographs clicked at a protest rally.
In the decades before Instagram, photojournalists would travel to war-torn areas or remote beautiful locations with cameras, reels and other equipment. These days, many use smartphone cameras, which come with photo-publishing apps. These allow photojournalists to not only share their pictures instantly but to also display their artistic side.
Here is a list of Indian photojournalists on Instagram, who have built quite a following with their stunningly composed photographs:
1.Dayanita Singh
Dayanita has authored twelve books on photography in her 45-year-long career. She is popular in art circles for her “portable museums.” A portable museum is made up of 40 photographs and is hung from a panel. Her photographs explore various themes – from industrial machinery to the life of her friend, the eunuch Mona Ahmed. Her Instagram is dotted with monochrome photographs, and pictures of vintage books and finely detailed sculptures.
You can follow her, here.
2. Arati Kumar Rao
Arati Kumar Rao’s appetite for storytelling began when she started reading monthly issues of National Geographic magazine as a child. Decades later, Arati is an established environmentalist who writes about and photographs indigenous populations living in vulnerable ecosystems. Her project on Tumblr, called River Diaries:Brahmaputra, is a study of one of the most important river systems in the world. She also contributes to Peepli.org, a news website, which publishes articles that “delve deep into the unreported, under-reported, themes that public discourse currently abdicates.”
You can follow her, here.
3. Ravi Choudhary
A B.Sc. agriculture graduate from a small town called Muzzafarnagar, Ravi Choudhary has been published in the Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Daily Mail. Currently employed by Hindustan Times, this prolific photographer has more than 34k followers on Instagram. His Instagram features everything from a young Tibetan monk playing with a toy gun to a double-exposure shot of Mark Zuckerberg during his trip to India.
Follow him to be regularly updated with incredible images accompanied by evocative captions.
You can follow him, here.
4. Chandan Khanna
When Chandan Khanna is not working on an assignment for Agence France-Presse, he whips out his phone camera and indulges in some “street reportage,” as he calls it. He procured a diploma in photography from Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication in New Delhi, where he studied different technical aspects of the art form. But he learnt the ethics of photojournalism while covering various newsworthy events in the city. His most recent series is a photo story called Bidi, which traces the hidden lives of child labourers employed illegally to produce Indian handmade cigarettes. From his Instagram, it is quite apparent that Chandan is unapologetic in the way he uses photos to point out the hypocrisy of the modern consumerist society.
You can follow him, here.
5. Anushree Fadnavis
Anushree works as a photojournalist for a Mumbai based news agency called Indus Images. Her current project, Train Diaries, has the attention of more than 93,000 people because it is attempting to do something very unique. Anushree photographs the women she meets on Mumbai’s local trains every day, and shares their pictures as well as poignant stories with her followers on social media.
You can follow her, here.
6. Subrata Biswas
Subrata Biswas has one of the most amazing collections of contemporary black and white pictures on Instagram; they evoke a sense of nostalgia and drama. He is extremely adept at clicking portraits that show his subjects in a vulnerable light. Subrata frames his subjects (usually unsuspecting villagers) in an intimate and humane manner. This makes the problems they face – such as the drought crisis in Maharashtra – so much more personal. His works have been published in The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Better Photography, etc.
You can follow him, here.
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