Rajesh Soni

Rajesh Soni is an Indian Writer and an Actor. He is an artist who lives in Udaipur, Rajasthan, who has been known for his abilities to hand paint digital photographs. He is a son of a famous artist Lalit Soni, and the grandson of Prabhu Lal Soni, who was once court photographer to the Maharana Sir Bhopal Singh of Mewar. Prabhu Lal Soni is also a hand-colorist who painted the black and white photographers that he produced. The skills of hand-coloring photographs were passed down to Rajesh through the intermediary of his father, Lalit Soni. 

Soni’s talent for sketching and art was noticed at an early age and fostered by his father. As a young boy, he sketched from life the historic Havelis and architecture of Udaipur’s old city, sometimes looking over the shoulders of art students who gathered to draw the ghats, and also eagerly teaching himself English from visiting tourists. In the year 2007, he met the American photographer Waswo X. Waswo, who encouraged him to work on reviving the traditions of colored hand photography.

After working with Waswo digital prints photography, Soni blended his grandfather’s traditional craft with the new photographic printing technologies. This collaborative effort between Soni and Waswo, combined with a series of collaborative miniatures Waswo had done in conjunction with the painter Rakesh Vijay, was eventually to become an exhibition that toured India same under the name A Studio in Rajasthan. Since the success of these exhibitions, Soni has traveled to several countries like Italy, Switzerland, and beyond.

A portion of this photographic collaboration between Rajesh Soni and Waswo X. Waswo was released as the book Men of Rajasthan, published in the Serindia Contemporary in 2011. He is the writer of some fantastic projects like ‘ Article 15 Click to look into! >> Read More... ’ in 2019, ‘Kyun! Ho Gya Na…’ in 2004, and ‘ Byaah Hamari Bahoo Ka Byaah Hamari Bahoo Ka is a proper Indian daily soa >> Read More... ’ in 2012. He has written books like Gauri Dancers in 2020 and Men of Rajasthan in 2012.