Guided by Her Perfumed Scent, a Blind Photographer Shoots Ad Campaign with Bollywood Movie Star Katrina Kaif

Imagine the elevator pitch for this marketing campaign: “O.K., it’s a bar of soap, but it’s more than that, it’s perfume. A lusciously beautiful model uses the soap. You can’t smell her in the ads – not yet – so we get one of these blind photographers we’ve been hearing about to do the shoot. He gets the shots by following her luscious scent. Beauty is more than what meets the eye. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a good back story is worth a million. Whadaya think?”

When the beautiful model is Bollywood movie star Katrina Kaif, and the photographer is Bhavesh Patel, the audacious concept sounds like it could come straight out of a Salman Rushdie novel. To my mind, there is no higher praise. He used to be an ad man, you know.

The promised back story is delivered in three YouTube videos documenting the photo shoot, the photographer, and the video director. Until I get some kind soul to read the video subtitles to me, I’ll withhold comment about representations of beauty and blindness. What I like most about what I find here is the portrayal of skilled image professionals doing their work. It’s good to know that a talented blind photographer is getting the work.

About the images: [Above] Blind photographer Bhavesh Patel snapped this glamor shot of Bollywood movie star Katrina Kaif for the Lux Perfume Portraits ad campaign. [Below] Katrina Kaif works with Bhavesh Patel in the studio. [Image source: Daily Mail]