Breaking boundaries, creating history!

July 14, 2017

Dr. Hersh Chadha OPM (Harvard), ARPS, photographer, writer, philanthropist and AUCA friend and long-term supporter of the American university of Central Asia.

In 2015, Dr. Chadha in association with AUCA’s Journalism and Mass Communications Department organized a photography competition for students, of which Talgat Subanaliev was the winner. The prize for Subanaliev was a photography expedition to Antarctica alongside researchers and photographers from all over the world, fully sponsored by Dr. Chadha.

In addition to Subanaliev, several AUCA students who had been helped by Dr. Chadha came to thank him for his support.

The Hersh Chadha foundation has sponsored the education of over 200 students worldwide across multiple universities, by providing them with scholarship grants. Hersh Chadha sees charity as a necessary tool in the promotion of human development. Therefore, he has provided crucial support for the establishment of an infrastructure for students in Journalism and Mass Communications through his media lab at AUCA’s new campus. Now, Dr. Hersh Chadha is interested in cooperation with Kyrgyz cinematographers.

“It was always my dream to accomplish something outstanding!” – says
photographer.

Dubai UAE, June 10: Dubai-based Indian photographer Dr. Hersh Chadha was
invited to Star City in Moscow to meet the cosmonauts/astrounauts who recently
returned from the International Space Mission 49/50. He was the honorary guest at the
ceremony and gave a speech showing his appreciation to the three cosmonauts who
took his photographs to Space. The event of welcoming the returning
cosmonauts/astronauts took place on 1st June, 2017 in the YU.A. Gagarin Research
and Test Cosmonaut Training Center.

On 19 October 2016, Dr. Hersh Chadha sent five of his photographs of flowers to the
International Space Station with the ISS 49/50 team comprising of Soyuz MS-02
Commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Flight Engineer Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos and
Flight Engineer Shane Kimbrough of NASA. These pictures are now displayed in the
International Space Station, making it as the first-ever permanent photography
exhibition in Space. His message to the cosmonauts/astronauts was “To me a flower
symbolizes the beauty of life… Well, I can’t give you a flower to take to Space but I
would like to give these pictures of flowers, that I took from around the world, so that
when you look at them, even in space, you get that feeling and truly experience “your
world”. "It's hard to imagine that 3 or 4 people sacrifice their entire lives for
humanity and civilization. What do we give back to them? I wanted to give them a
piece of home to take with them"

“Photography is a great medium of expression and my purpose of doing this was to
let the human beings who live on the Space Station for so many months to be still
connected to Mother Earth” says the photographer. And it was indeed so: “It was a
part of the support that we had on board” - states cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov.
It all began more than 15 years ago, when Dr. Chadha went to study at Harvard
Business School and his fellow student spoke to him about her late father, Stuart
Allen Roosa, who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. Dr.
Chadha was inspired by him and wanted to send his pictures to Space. He kept trying
till Col. Valery Korzun from Star City in Moscow arranged for five of his pictures of
flowers to be taken to Space last year. Finally Dr. Chadha’s dream had come true!
“I think I have achieved what I wanted to. I have managed to excel in the field of
photography in my own view and this is because finally five of my pictures went to
the International Space Station. I also want to share this with other people so that they
can keep pursuing their dream, even if it takes 15 years to come true” states Dr. Hersh
Chadha.

Along with five photographs, Dr. Chadha has sent his book “Visions of Nature”,
published by Assouline Inc., to Star City as a gift for the Training Centre. “It's a very
beautiful book with wonderful pictures that were taken by a real photo artist, and it is
you. And if you give us your permission, your book will be used as a training manual
for taking pictures of Earth from the ISS by the cosmonauts.” – says Col.Valery
Korzun , the chief for the 1st administration of Cosmonaut Training Center (TsPK).
Dr. Chadha not only agreed to this but also gave a Hard Disk to Star City containing
500 of his pictures to be used for their training manual.
-ENDSAbout

Dr. Hersh Chadha, ARPS, OPM (Harvard) is an eminent scholar, philanthropist and
photographer from India based in Dubai since 1987. During the course of his travels
to more than 92 countries and over 279 cities, he has photographed landscape,
architecture, portraits, flora and fauna and fashion. He is also an avid reader, visiting
Professor of Photojournalism, a keen economist and collector of objects d’art, besides
being a co-producer of a few films.
Feeling for people in need, Dr. Hersh Chadha considers philanthropy as a necessary
tool in contributing towards human development. Education is one of the focal points
in the framework of his philanthropic activity. The Hersh Chadha foundation has
sponsored the education of over 200 students worldwide across multiple universities,
by providing them with scholarship grants.
He has worked with a number of wildlife agencies like the World Wildlife Fund
(WWF), The Arabian Leopard Trust and the Environmental Research and Wildlife
Development Agency (ERWDA) – and has made significant photographic
contributions to these agencies.
Dr. Chadha now features in the 2015 edition of the Limca Book of Records under the
category, “Photo book of most cities by the same photographer”, for having launched
a photo book titled Masterpiece, covering 235 cities.
Dr. Chadha is a member of The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain in UK,
Emirates Fine Arts Society in Sharjah, UAE, Dubai Press Club, UAE and many more
organizations worldwide.

For more information, please visit : www.hershchadha.com
http://www.youtube.com/hershchadha
http://www.instagram.com/hershchadha
http://www.facebook.com/hershchadhaphoto

About ISS :
The International Space Station is a large spacecraft and the most complex
international scientific and engineering project in history. Its first part launched into
orbit in 1998 with the first crew arrived on November 2000.
Five different space agencies representing 15 countries built the $100-billion
International Space Station and continue to operate it today. It has science labs from
the United States, Russia, Japan and Europe.
The International Space Station orbits above the Earth maintaining an orbit with an
altitude of between 330 and 435 km (205 and 270 miles). It travels at approximately
27,600 km/hr (17,200 mph), so it takes about 92.65 minutes to circle the Earth once.
For this reason, every 45 minutes the astronauts on-board see a sunrise or a sunset.
On April 10th, 2017 after 173 days in space the Expedition 50 returned to Earth.
Dr. Hersh Chadha’s photographs traveled 115,200,000 km (69,120,000 miles) in 6
months and thereafter keep adding to the mileage.

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