And The Winner Is…

Words by Belmond Editors
A man in red-striped shirt and beige trousers kneels by a woman in a black lace dress, apparently floating above the floor.

The Belmond Photographic Residency, now in its second year, has crowned a new winner. Meet Tara L. C. Sood and her award-winning submission. 

Following an intensive few days of judging in New York, an internationally renowned jury has awarded Tara L. C. Sood the Belmond Photographic Residency 2026. Tara’s winning submission, titled The Great Mandrake Magic Convention, is a photo series celebrating India’s historic art of magic. Shot in nostalgic sites like memorial halls and old single-screen cinemas, it features magicians aged 13 to 75 performing classic illusions such as levitation and escapes, blending staged and documentary photography. The project explores performance and heritage, while also delving into post-colonial themes and the legacy of Indian magic appropriated by the West. 

The jury comprised of internationally recognised voices in the photography world, including photographers Tyler Mitchell, Kathy Ryan and Colin Dodgson, writer Kimberley Drew, co-founder of RVB Books Mathieu Charon and Lydia Melamed Johnson, Executive Director of AIPAD. 

Tara L. C. Sood is a Franco-Indian photographer and filmmaker based between London, Paris and India. Her work, which is mostly character-driven, often blurs the lines between staged and documentary, with a cinematic point of view. Favouring darkroom handprints, archival elements and the use of a rich colour palette that is telling of her Indian heritage, her personal work searches to create a new way of understanding and discarding tropes of the past. She brings forward the same intrinsically surreal style to her fashion and commercial work. 

Sood will receive an all-expenses residency at Belmond’s Villa Sant’ Andrea next year, leading to a print publication with RVB Books, a photography showcase in a major global city, mentorship from Belmond's network of photographic experts and a financial award.   

Explore her winning submission below. 

An Indian ventriloquist in a pink shirt and sage trousers sits on a large, curved banquette with his dummy on his knee.
A magician in a black suit releases a white dove in front of a seated children in front of Gnanabhaskara Public School.
A woman and boy pose with a basket on a stage with a red curtain and broken 'India' sign at a magic convention in Bangalore.
Two magicians fix locks to a water tank containing a submerged boy in Tara L. C. Sood's The Great Mandrake Magic Convention.
Illusionist Nikhil Raj stands bare-chested in water with a white budgerigar sitting on his outstretched hand, seen from above.
A white dove with wings raised and touching above its head faces the camera as it sits on the hand of a magician, close-up.
A magician in white levitates a woman in a purple on a red cushion on stage during The Great Mandrake show, seen from afar.
A group of school children with lanyards watch intensely as something happens off camera, in a close-up by Tara L. C. Sood.
A black cockerel with a red comb and bronze head feathers stands sideways on table top, a beady eye on the camera.
A red, blue, green and yellow inflatable slide with a Mickey Mouse-like figure fills a hall with an ornate carved mezzanine.
Magician Shankar Junior stands in an empty, tiled room in a maroon jacket and black trousers, reflected in a wall mirror.
A woman with dark hair and a red dress levitates a rope so it stands high above her head by a tall platform in a large room.

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