The Persona

Elle Jé   is the   alter ego of Lesley Jean Saunders an enigmatic elegant and charismatic lady who is was an IT professional as a senior manager with an international conglomerate.  Lesley has travelled the world and has enjoyed and appreciated the subtle nuances of numerous cultures she has encountered in her travels.  She took up photography as a hobby and a relaxing pastime as recently as 2007.  

It is on her several  visits to India over the last 2 years that she honed her skills and was inadvertently exposed to the richness and beauty of the ‘real people’ of India in towns, cities and villages.  She is fascinated and is in awe of the womenfolk of this country.  Their resilience and fortitude has made a lasting impression on her.  

Lesley’s images portray the strength, the beauty, the steadfastness and the contentment of these amazing women, who stand tall with pride in a plethora of situations that we urban and materially spoilt folk would find hard to cope with.  The pride of the 80 something year old lady scaling a hillock upright and briskly, the contented smile of the shy young lady in the colourful yellow sari, the pensive look of the young bride to be, the teenage gypsy girl taking on the hustle and bustle of a challenging world at a tender age, the woman in the bright red sari walking away from the vagaries of her daily routine, are all a poignant testimony to this incredible strength these women of India have. 

As described by a modest and unassuming admirer of her work, “Lesley sees a picture and then puts it into her camera!”.   Another quote "Awesome pictures, the silence is deafening"  more than a befitting compliment to Lesley's passion and perceptions.  Lesley also has a penchant for the abstract and the surreal. The lonely vending cart, a tomato defying gravity, the proud fruit vendor and the insignificant clothesline seemingly alive in the sea breeze are all examples that illustrate Lesley’s versatility