London, July 17 (IANS) Celebrated photojournalist Frank Monaco, who travelled to India several times and captured its life and times through his camera, has died aged 89.
Monaco was described as the quintessential photojournalist, hard-bitten and hard-drinking. He loved documenting private contemplations: monks and nuns in Italy, England, Ireland and elsewhere, and religious communities in India, a country he loved.
According to his obituary in The Guardian, “By charm, commitment and empathy, he gained access to places closed to the outside world…The glint in his eye and the rusty-chain laugh would fix you, and captivating tales of other lives and distant cities would follow, delivered in the pungent Italian-American tones he never lost in half a century of life as a Londoner”.
Monaco disliked the affectations and embraces of the world of high art, and saw himself simply as a witness to life’s drama and vividness, but more often to its modest necessities. “All I do is record,” he would say.