To commemorate the 1st anniversary of #TheStreetFactor, we present to you
the fourth part of a series of journals dedicated to the great masters:
The Pioneers of Street Photography.




Raghubir Singh
(October 22, 1942 - April 18, 1999)
was among the first photographers to successfully use color, especially in the fields of
Documentary and Street Photography, to great acclaim.




^{Crawford Market, Mumbai, Maharashtra - 1993. © Raghubir Singh}


Born in Jaipur, India, Singh attended St. Xavier's School school and it was here that he discovered Cartier-Bresson's
little-known book, Beautiful Jaipur, published in 1949, which inspired his interest in photography.
Later on after a year of studying arts at The Hindu College in New Delhi, Raghubir decided to drop out.
Now, with time on his hands, he began taking photographs using a camera
his brother, Pratap Singh had brought for him from Hong Kong.



^{Taxi Driver and Pedestrian Argue, Chitpur Road, Calcutta - 1987. © Raghubir Singh.}


Singh then moved south to join his other brother, Bhopal Singh, as a tea planter near Calcutta.
This was not successful and he resumed taking pictures with enthusiasm,
learning from Bhopal what he called 'the aesthetics of the candid style'.




^{Women Servants, Calcutta - 1986. © Raghubir Singh.}


After moving to Calcutta to photograph street scenes, Raghubir got his first commercial break in the mid-60s,
when Life magazine published several pages of his photographs of student unrest in India.




^{Bazaar through Glass Door, Bombay, 1989. © Raghubir Singh.}


That success fueled a career as a photojournalist that kept him in India until 1976.
Singh, a self-confessed "semi-nomad," began to roam the globe, living and working in London, Paris,
Hong Kong and New York, leaving boxes of books and photographs piled high in friends' houses along the way.




^{Chess Players, Banaras Floods, 1967. © Raghubir Singh.}


Although money was often in short supply, it didn't prevent Singh from generally living in the manner he desired.
By the mid-1970s Singh was 'visiting' from the European, and then the US, outposts he chose to make his home.
In Paris, he came to know Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose own vision of India could hardly be more different from his own.




^{Visitors to the Taj Mahal - 1993. © Raghubir Singh.}


Singh had strong views on why black was an alien colour in Indian culture, and the inappropriateness of
using black-and-white film to 'produce the angst and alienation rooted in the work of western photographers
such as Brassai, Brandt, Frank and Arbus.'




^{Trichur, Kerala, 1985. © Raghubir Singh.}


Nonetheless the two photographers could no doubt concur, in Singh's words,
on a shared 'interest to photograph in the documentary style, where the viewfinder is a window onto two worlds;
the internal as well as the external.'




^{Vendor and Clients, Bundi Town, Rajasthan, India - 1997. © Raghubir Singh.}


In time Singh was acknowledged with William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld as one of
the finest photographers of his generation and a leading pioneer of colour photography.




^{Grand Trunk Road, Durgarpur, West Bengal, 1988. © Raghubir Singh.}


"There is one problem for me if I try to shoot in the West," Singh said in an interview with the Washington Post.
"There's an element of privacy . . . even on the street. You can't go up to someone and put your camera in his or her face.
You can sneak a photograph, but you can't, you can't intrude on the person."




^{Pilgrim and Ambassador car, Kumbh Mela, Prayag, Uttar Pradesh, 1977. © Raghubir Singh.}


"Now, in India, you can do it all the time. No one minds.
[And] every Indian person thinks of the photograph--the camera--as something before which he poses.
So you might have shot several rolls of someone, you know, but that person . . . will not think that you have
taken a photograph until he's struck a pose."




^{Pavement mirror shop, Howrah, West Bengal, 1991. © Raghubir Singh.}


His work reflected a mastery of color and subtlety.
"To see India monochromatically," he told Time magazine, "is to miss it altogether."




^{Monsoon Rains, Monghyr, Bihar - 1967.  © Raghubir Singh.}



 


_{Check out these great Street Photography groups:}

  















Are you a Street Photographer who likes to know more about "Street",
give and receive feedback and constructive critique on your street photos?
Are you a beginner and looking for resources and material on Street Photography?
Are you looking for inspiration, motivation, a spur to go out and shoot?

Then here's the perfect Street Group for you:  



#TheYardPlayground



<sub>Most excerpts and Photographs shamelessly lifted and edited from:
- Multiple sources from around the web -
- Wikipedia -</sub>