My name is Aakaash Bali.
I was born in New York City to two ambitious immigrants from India. I grew up in the 1990s in a dense, multicultural neighborhood in Queens. At a young age, my father introduced me to photography, and my life has felt more complete looking through a viewfinder ever since. Capturing the spectrum of emotion, light, color, and shadow became part of the framework through which I understood life.
My goal has always been to create in order to better understand myself, the world around me, and my potential within it.
Photography became a place where I could explore the parts of life that were difficult to make sense of—memory, isolation, grief, identity, and the strange emotional weight of ordinary, mundane places. I craft images intentionally and deliberately, alongside a crew of amazing artists from around the world. We treat each piece with respect, and the evolution of our work is deeply important to us.
In April 2026, my collection, "The Heart Of The Woods" was selected as a finalist in the Hasselblad Masters Competition in the Art category, one of 70 photographers chosen from more than 108,000 image submissions from around the world. I was invited to display artwork at a show sponsored by TIME Pieces and National Geographic in New York City in June 2022, as well as at Art Basel in Miami, Florida, in December 2022.
I still feel like a young child experiencing a camera for the first time. My father passed away in 2019, and much of what I create is for him, and in remembrance of him. Before he died, he made me promise that I would never quit—and that I would always do better.
I still live and create by that promise today.
FULL CREW
Creative Director & Photographer – Aakaash Bali
Cinematographer – Abe Bello
Colorist – Baptiste Carrara
Drone Pilot – Matt Bell
Concept Artist – Sharru Zen Metta
CGI/VFX Artist – Paul Del Vecchio
Communications Director – Anita Bali
Sound – Christian Ladigoski
Custom Fabrication – Patrick Carrara
PRODUCTION SUPPORT
Michael J. Fusco
Aaqil Khoja
Sajjad Merchant
Emily Nelson
Steven Feldman
Proudly Sponsored By:
Aakaash Bali | Long Island, NY | Fine Art Portraiture