Hucknall Dispatch Article - India - Elle Je Photography Nottingham Nottinghamshire

A HUCKNALL-born woman whose skills behind a camera have brought her fame in India is currently back in this country.

A photographic portrayal by Lesley Saunders (54) of The ‘Real’ Women of India has made a huge impact on the sub-continent.

International broadcaster and raconteur Shaun Rana has described Lesley as an “enigmatic, elegant and charismatic lady”.

She has travelled the world and took up photography as a hobby and relaxing pastime as recently as 2007.

Tuition that Lesley received from a distinguished photographer, Anand Sharan, helped her to capture the strength, beauty, steadfastness and contentment of “amazing” women she encountered in India.

Her subjects included a woman in her 80s briskly scaling a hillock and a young bride-to-be with a pensive look.

An IT expert, Lesley was senior manager of an international conglomerate, with whom she worked for 17 years, but she is now looking to start up her own business in India.

She is planning exhibitions of her photos in London, Paris and New York to raise money for ROKO, a prominent breast-cancer awareness charity.

She has also been asked to write a monthly column for the ‘Asian Photography’ magazine, which covers the whole of the continent.

All this is an incredible turnaround from a ski-ing accident about six years ago which left Lesley close to death.

She suffered multiple blood-clots on her lungs, as well as pneumonia, and she was warned she should never fly again.

But even though Lesley now takes warfarin anticoagulant tablets, she refused to give up her love of travel and her ambitious attitude to life.

“I was determined to carry on regardless,” she told a Dispatch reporter on a visit to our office on Yorke Street.

Lesley’s father is Tom Bell, who ran the well-known Hucknall taxi firm named after him. She lived on Knoll Avenue, Hucknall as a youngster and attended the town’s Holgate group of schools.

She and her husband, Mike (57), who works in the data cabling industry, lived on Babbacombe Way, Hucknall before moving to the Nottinghamshire village of Whatton.