As a professor, Shivji Joshi has been head of the Jodhpur Jai Narayan Vyas University Philosophy Department for many years and is also a gifted photographer whose works have been published regularly in the National Geographics magazine. Today he passes on his photographic knowledge and inspires students from all over India.
He sits proudly on the wall of his modest accommodation – the 2010 Nikon calendar, with his picture of the camels in the dunes of the Thar desert. We are sitting together with Shivji Joshi in his “Class Room”, as the 73-year-old photographer calls his home. Tiny 15 square meters. A small, light green painted room, in the winding streets of Jodhpur’s old town.
Today, Shivji still trains students – his own. Because recently, the gifted photographer has begun to offer courses in photography. Free. “I make that for satisfaction and happiness,” as he tells us. The photography classes quickly became a huge success and it was not long before his students from all over India came to visit him. He proudly digs out a pile of handwritten leaves; The exams of his students. Clean prepared, accurately evaluated with a red pencil and collected in a yellowed Sichtmäppchen.
Shivji soon became interested in photography. At a time when developing a negative film for an average Indian teacher’s income cost almost a small fortune
"Photography is for me a very strong means to discover my inner soul and, moreover, to bring even better to the feelings and emotions of my people."Shivji Joshi
