Diwan Manna has been actively capturing/creating images in India Europe America and South East Asia since 1980. He is better known for his conceptual photographs. He was born in a small town Bareta in Punjab a north Indian state known for its agricultural riches. He was trained as a graphic artist and painter but chose to be a photographer instead. He has been given National Academy Award a once in a lifetime award by the National Fine Arts Academy of India along with many other prestigious awards and honours. He has been exhibiting his work internationally since 1986 including France United Kingdom Germany Italy Poland and India. Fifteen of his works are in the permanent collection of Museum Fur Indische Kunst Berlin now known as Museum of Asian Art and 28 prints in the Museum of Modern Art Saint Etienne France apart from other renowned institutions. Diwan Manna is known for his soulful images and is a pioneer among art photographers in India. He is one of the first exponents in conceptual photography in the country. His artistic technique and expression is unique and has a style of its own. Diwan combines photography with painting body arts and acting to create works that defy definition. Most of his work is about his journey in search of trying to come to terms with the insidious and unrecognized forms of degradation of our sense of life and honour within ourselves as well as in others. He is not merely interested in presenting images of destruction of human goodness courage and beauty but tries to tap the unsuspected and as yet unrealized sources of tenderness fortitude and humanity in us. Some of the significant images that come to a serious art connoisseur’s mind are from the series Shores of the Unknown After the Turmoil Alienation Violence and Conceptual Self Portraits. He shows us many aspects in three successive phases of his work. The black and white of his first work and then the fiery contrasts of colours in his more recent work are only metaphors of eternal combat that men engage in to reach the light.