About

After a career doing both commercial and press photography, I became drawn to exploring the cities and villages of my native India, seeking out and photographing the people whose cultures and ways of life are quickly becoming lost in the contemporary, more homogenized world of today.  

Now based in the US but having lived in Africa, Nepal and India, where much of my work is focused, I have a unique connectivity to and understanding of my subject matter. I offer a perspective that looks both from the outside in and from the inside out. As an artist who sees myself as a global citizen, I seek to capture what is culturally familiar to me, yet present the image with an appreciation of how an outsider’s eye may see the peoples and cultures that I explore through my work. Rather than solely portraying the novelty, my focus is on presenting the humanity and allowing the viewer to relate to the subjects that I photograph in a way that they otherwise may never get to experience.

Robi is the recipient of several awards from the International Color Awards including Photographer of the Year Award and was the recipient of the 6th Annual Master Cup for his photo, Off the Ground, depicting a tribal child in (region, India) pushing a cycle rim down a village road. The same photo won the 2015 Directors Choice award from Photo Place Gallery Vermont, juried by James P Blair National Geographic photo editor (Retired). Recent awards include the Merit Award in All About Photo Magazine (July 2018) and the Excellence Award in Black & White Magazine (June 2018).

Other awards include a bronze Award for a photo of (place) villagers playing Holi in Color Magazine (May 2011 issue). Robi’s work has accompanied articles in the Washington Post and Global Post and has been shown in many juried exhibitions in the United States including the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), Rayko (San Francisco, CA), Mpls Center for Photography (Minneapolis, MN), Alliance Française (Paris, France and Minneapolis, MN), Museum of Contemporary Art (Washington DC), and Photo Place Gallery (VT).

Robi currently lives in the US and continues to visit his native India to explore its different states and photograph its people, culture, festivals and landscape in all of their rich diversity.