Indian fashion and celebrity portrait photographer Dabboo Ratnani is world famous for his collectible celebrity calendars first published over 20 years ago. He has shot numerous cover photographs for magazines around the globe including Better Homes and Gardens, and has taken publicity stills for many films including Blackmail, Om Shanti Om, Hera Pheri, Jhankaar Beats, Aatish, Legend of Bhagat Singh, Aawara Pagal Deewana and Jo Bole So Nihaal. He was a mentor on MTV India’s Next Top Model show and a jury for the 2006 Miss India competition.
Ratnani’s photography career began in Mumbai where he trained with Naren Sundar before working independently from 1994 onwards. Ratnani began working in films doing editorial work, which led to model portfolios and several major publicity and advertising campaigns. He has since become one of the leading portrait and celebrity photographers in Indian cinema.
His internationally famous annual calendar was first published in 1999 in the style of the iconic Pirelli Calendar. Numerous Bollywood stars have appeared in his calendar over the last two decades, including Bipasha Basu, Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Arjun Rampal and Shahrukh Khan, and in 2012 he shot a behind-the-scenes video of each celebrity featured in the calendar which he later published on YouTube.
Ratnani has amassed a huge online following, with an impressive 1.8m followers on Instagram and over 1.7 million on Twitter.
