When photographer Raghu Rai died in April, he left behind more than six decades of photographs and one unfinished project. Titled India, the 2027 Pirelli Calendar was unveiled in New Delhi on October 23, and it carries his idea through to the end, in the hands of his daughter, Avani Rai.
Now in its 53rd edition, the Calendar has, for the first time, been shot by three photographers. Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø, who also shot the 2026 edition, worked alongside Raghu Rai, and later Avani, to portray a country he openly admits he could not capture alone.
“When I came here in February and spoke to Mr Rai, it was very clear that our approaches would be completely different,” Sundsbø told Robb Report India at the unveiling. “He has been the eyes of India since 1965. It’s very hard to even think of entering that territory. I’m from Norway. I’m a tourist, so I have no right to try to do that, and no ambition to,” he says exclusively to Robb Report India.
Raghu Rai had photographed India since 1965. For Pirelli, he planned to shoot studio portraits in front of a selection of his unpublished archive images, placing past and present within the same frame. He worked on the project for several months before his death.
Avani chose to take the idea out of the studio. She returned her father’s photographs, both published and unpublished, to the streets where he had shot them, and photographed them in place, with the life of 2026 unfolding around them.
“My father belonged to the street. That’s why I took the idea he was working on and brought it back to the streets, among the people he had photographed all his life,” she says. “I take a step back, spiritually and literally. I stand behind him.”
In Delhi, she retraced his routes with the help of his longtime driver, Nandan. Together, they explored markets, historic neighbourhoods and walked along the Yamuna, including the flower market and a school in Old Delhi. In Mumbai, the work moves from skyscraper rooftops and spaces frequented by young people to the city’s older neighbourhoods and fishing villages. Around 130 people appear in her series, from dancers and artisans to her own mother, and even actor Ranveer Singh.
Raghu’s original photograph remains untouched in every frame. “Although he was no longer physically present, his work was part of every decision I made,” says Avani. “In a way, it felt as though three artists were in the room: two of us physically present, and one continuing to be present through his photographs.”
Sundsbø took a different route. He photographed nine women with ties to India at Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur and in Ajabgarh, Rajasthan. His portraits include actors Aditi Rao Hydari and Avantika Vandanapu, actor and producer Freida Pinto, musician and composer Anoushka Shankar, poet and performer Rupi Kaur, models Lakshmi Menon and Bhavitha Mandava, author and television host Padma Lakshmi and Avani Rai herself, who appears both behind the camera and in front of it.
It marked a shift in method from his 2026 Calendar. “The first time was a solo show, an abstract idea in my head made into pictures,” he says while speaking to Robb Report India. “This time it was a real place, reacting to real people in real light. Straight photography, with very little manipulation.”
Light shaped the brief. “My brief to myself was: when you close your eyes and think of India, what do you see?” he says. “You’ll have your version, I’ll have mine, and mine is shaped by the fact that these ideas were made from afar. I just had to have the light as part of it.” Ideally, he adds, he would have shot across Ladakh, Kerala, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Darjeeling. Instead, Jaigarh offered privacy for a film crew and its cast, along with enough variation in light, atmosphere and architecture within a single site. The resulting portraits play on colour and contrast: luminous fabrics, flowers floating on mirror-like water and the shadows cast by the fort’s stone geometry.
For Pinto, shooting in India brought its own ease. “Some of the locations we were shooting at are places I’ve been to before, so there’s a sense of nostalgia,” she says exclusively to Robb Report India. The shoot began before dawn, “a blessing in disguise, because we were shooting in Jaipur in May.” She describes Sundsbø as “a very assured photographer. He knows what angles he needs. He doesn’t overthink anything.” His approach, she adds, was not to force a story on his subjects. “The movements, the flow, the posing all came naturally.”
What stayed with her was the company. “My memories are around people, not around one image of me,” she says. “Bumping into Avantika as she was about to shoot hers, seeing Bhavitha at the hotel, chatting with Lakshmi Menon, meeting Aditi. Knowing we were all there for that one moment is what’s memorable.”
Shot between May and September, the 2027 Calendar comes as a box set with two separate pockets, holding 36 photographs in all: 18 by Sundsbø and 18 from Raghu and Avani Rai’s project.
Sundsbø sees the split as a strength. “India is a lot,” he says. “We could probably have done it with five photographers and it would have been even better, because you’d see even more. Hopefully it gives a wide-angle view: the tourist version and the local version.”
Pinto reads the two halves as a statement about the country itself. “For many years, there’s been a stereotype around India,” she says. “We have Sølve’s ethereal women in beautiful dresses and settings, and Avani’s slice-of-life India, unmistakably how she and her father have photographed the country. Together, they embrace modernity and tradition, but not one without the other. For modernity, you don’t abandon tradition. And for tradition, you don’t ignore that modernity is a part of it.”
For Avani, the work was less about technique than about a way of looking she learnt from her father. “He never taught me how to photograph,” she says. “He taught me something far more fundamental: how to be alive to the world around me.”