{"id":936078,"date":"2026-05-04T01:10:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/936078\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T01:10:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:10:35","slug":"meet-the-patels-a-photographers-portraits-of-twins-with-a-shared-surname","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/936078\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Patels: a photographer\u2019s portraits of twins with a shared surname"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"8b1fc2f5-f2a1-4cc1-971d-3fdfa83f963b\">When Mumbai-based photographer Ketaki Sheth moved to London in the mid-1990s, after her new husband, Aurobind Patel, became design director of The Economist, she came across a directory listing some 30,000 people with his surname in Britain. Intrigued, she began researching the diaspora of Patels \u2014 a name predominantly found in the state of Gujarat, on the west coast of India. She decided to focus on twins with the surname for a photographic project, and spent the next three years tracking them down across Britain and Gujarat. Her carefully posed portraits reveal both the cultural differences and shared inheritance of those who stayed in India and those who came to Britain. Sheth, who was born in 1957, now lives and works in Mumbai. Her portraits of Patel twins will be shown at the international photography fair Photo London from the 13th-17th May.<\/p>\n<p id=\"8b1fc2f5-f2a1-4cc1-971d-3fdfa83f963b\"><strong>Twinspotting: Photographs of Patel Twins in Britain &amp; India by Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK. Photo London, National Hall at Olympia W14, May 13-17. Readers can use the code\u00a0SUNDAYTIMES\u00a0to redeem 20 per cent off tickets at\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.com\/v3\/__http:\/\/photolondon.seetickets.com__;!!F0Stn7g!GQDmXEAyaPGDmd1B51DxF2RWlGY5KEscDmd32YX4LI61TChtPjq9Gk-rAVWfjMISauHSOuICk1rT7Ieij87s5Mk35crhVA%24\">photolondon.seetickets.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1797\" width=\"1800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/04b50f50-3cc5-438e-a668-1394073eabd4.jpg\" alt=\"Two adults help two young children, Sanchit and Sawan, hold wooden sticks in a courtyard.\" class=\"wp-image-21845002\"\/>Sanchit and Sawan, Gujarat, 1998Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1800\" width=\"1798\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/15dac2b0-2874-49d1-bf18-891e00b88a13.jpg\" alt=\"Jigna and Jilpa, two young women, posing outdoors in Middlesex.\" class=\"wp-image-21845003\"\/>Jigna and Jilpa, Middlesex, 1996Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1800\" width=\"1797\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ecc0b186-5e9b-4686-b6a4-5361639ad9b6.jpg\" alt=\"Yesha and Niddhi on a swing, Gujarat.\" class=\"wp-image-21845009\"\/>Yesha and Niddhi, Gujarat, 1998Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1795\" width=\"1800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/00e23ac1-2dfa-4ec0-9b7d-f05e671e7ecf.jpg\" alt=\"Twin girls Bijli and Bindiya standing in front of a shed.\" class=\"wp-image-21845020\"\/>Bijli and Bindiya, Kent, 1996Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1797\" width=\"1800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/194cbb96-ef01-4f7b-aaba-4eb67fe47acf.jpg\" alt=\"Ramesh and Suresh relaxing on a couch in Middlesex.\" class=\"wp-image-21845010\"\/>Ramesh and Suresh, Middlesex, 1997Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1800\" width=\"1797\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3b8ffb73-27a8-40bb-9003-0c3769357cc6.jpg\" alt=\"Two young men, Rahul and Ronak, in Gujarat, India.\" class=\"wp-image-21845022\"\/>Rahul and Ronak, Gujarat, 1998Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1794\" width=\"1800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9135ecf4-b63b-4941-a46b-a29d40e8c4d5.jpg\" alt=\"Sanjiv and Sandip, two young men, stand behind the counter of a store stocked with tobacco and alcohol.\" class=\"wp-image-21845013\"\/>Sanjiv and Sandip, Ascot, 1996Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p id=\"1479d88d-b042-4ddd-85c7-c863058d94c9\">x<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1800\" width=\"1794\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/52ebd837-add5-4805-8333-6f238998192b.jpg\" alt=\"Two men, Milan and Mayur, sit together in a room in Gujarat.\" class=\"wp-image-21845001\"\/>Milan and Mayur, Gujarat, 1998Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1800\" width=\"1797\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b9cd03fe-765e-46fa-941f-245a90e857e3.jpg\" alt=\"Two children, Luv and Kush, lie on floral chairs.\" class=\"wp-image-21845021\"\/>Luv and Kush, London, 1996Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1793\" width=\"1800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5bc1339a-3316-4981-9864-ed674e68370c.jpg\" alt=\"Two young men, Luv and Kush, sit in a classroom in Gujarat.\" class=\"wp-image-21845008\"\/>Luv and Kush, Gujarat, 1998Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   height=\"1795\" width=\"1800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/e2cdab66-f5e3-4f02-81bc-363a45e07966.jpg\" alt=\"Two young girls, Riddhi and Siddhi, sit on a sofa.\" class=\"wp-image-21845011\"\/>Riddhi and Siddhi, London, 1997Ketaki Sheth\/PHOTOINK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mumbai-based photographer Ketaki Sheth moved to London in the mid-1990s, after her new husband, Aurobind Patel, became&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-936078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116513645425974995","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}