For this edition, a photographic journey that combines a Western gaze and millennial intimacy
A smile of complicity, in an oasis of quiet suspended in time, clean geometries and an environment capable of instilling immediate harmony. That almost stolen smileimmortalized in a moment of pause during the making of Pirelli Calendar 2027is, in the opinion of the writer, one of the most evocative images of his entire backstage.
It is the knowing and sincere smile between Sølve Sundsbø and Avani Raithe two photographers who created, together with the Indian master Raghu Rai, Avani’s father, who passed away in April during the worksnext year’s “The Cal”™.
For the first time in over sixty years of history, the Indian subcontinent was approached for the setting of the famous calendar. And again for the first time, the decision to entrust the project to two different perspectives, Sølve Sundsbø and Raghu Rai (then carried forward, after his death, by his daughter Avani, also a very famous photographer).
The intention was to celebrate India from two different perspectivesthanks to two different looks: the western and glamorous one of the appreciated Swedish fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø and the more intimate and rooted one, capable of transmitting the essence of the country from those who really know India and have lived it on a daily basis.
“I had no right to create this project alone” – explains Sølve Sundsbø. “When they told me that Mr. Raghu Rai would be a part of it, to me it was like he was a god of photography.” I concentrated on the portraits of the people of this country, I leave the most difficult task to Avani, that of trying to capture their soul”.
In addition to trying to immortalize the soul of a country full of beauty, contradictions and complexity, Avani Rai had to overcome an even more difficult test: being the protagonist of an intense passing of the baton left to her by her father Raghu Rai.
“My job – says Avani – develops the original concept created by my father, but transferring it from the studio to the street. He belonged to the street, and bringing him to life is something deeply personal, as if you were entering into his gaze and the way he saw India through his camera. Photography was his gift to me.”
An edition that merges the cultural identity of contemporary India, without forgetting the aesthetics and language of its ancient traditions.
