Raghu Rai didn’t just photograph India, he invented a way of seeing it

I came to Raghu Rai before I came to photography.

As a young, 18-year-old inconsequential boy shooting for a city magazine, more to fund a relationship than any artistic calling, photography was a means to an end, until his images began to intrude — in passing at first, then completely. They didn’t just influence what I shot, they altered what I thought a photograph could hold.