• In 1947 he moved with his father from Punjab to Mombasa, hoping for a better life. He worked as a labourer. He spoke no English but had a few lucky breaks.
•Dhillon covered the aftermath of the Vietnam war, showing how the defoliant Agent Orange deployed by the US against the guerrilla fighters devastated generations of human beings, animals and burned all vegetation.
Mo — his friends called him Mo — Dhillon, a renown cameraman who started as an illiterate studio worker in 1952 but became Haile Selassie's official cameraman.
The award-winning journalist has died, aged 89.
He died on Monday at 5.30am aged 99, his close friends have confirmed.
From a poor household in India, Mohinder Dhillon followed his father from Punjab to Mombasa in 1947 at age 16, as they sought a better life.
Hardly schooled and knowing no English — he only spoke Urdu — Dhillon's future seemed sealed as a hard labour worker. This seemed to mean meant that the poverty he and his father fled in India would define them.
Not so.
'Death Wish Dhillon', as his contemporaries called him for his daring spirit, turned the tables, epitomising the old adage of 'from grass to grace'.
In his autobiography, My Camera, My Life, Dhillon says he "got his first break when he was offered work as a darkroom assistant in Nairobi at Halley Studio, graduating to stills photography in 1952, and then film."
This small gig in the journalistic circle would later translate into high-impact journalism that highlighted the plight of the poor, bringing them help.
For more than five decades, Dhillon stood out as a prolific news cameraman, whose work told Africa's stories including war and famine.
His career peaked when he became the official cinematographer for Ethiopia's revered Emperor Haile Selassie, travelling the world to cover his official engagements.
Of all his pieces, Mo was most proud of his coverage of the 1984 Ethiopian famine as it demonstrated the potential of high-impact journalism. His work opened up the country to record donations to alleviate suffering.
Tens of millions of dollars were raised in response to alleviate the famine.
Of the coverage, he wrote, "The demand for my images from different news agencies was insatiable, and he ended up staying 13 months, with just one weekend to see my family back in Nairobi."
"Day after day, he filmed babies and infants dying in front of him every few minutes. The wailing of parents had a traumatic effect on his psyche — every night, he would lie awake re-living what he had witnessed," he wrote.
The famine affected six million people.
With the late photojournalist Mohamed (Mo) Amin, he shot the documentary African Calvary, a 30-minute film that described all dimensions of the famine as it unfolded. It was aired in 1985, more aid and relief poured in.
"Giant transport planes from different air forces of the world headed for Ethiopia in such large numbers that there was no space left for them to park. For a while, the small dusty airstrips in places like Makele became as busy as Heathrow," Dhillon wrote.
But that wasn't all. He was daring, carrying his camera with him to places where many journalists feard to tread
Dhillon also covered the aftermath of the Vietnam war, using film to tell how the defoliant Agent Oranged deployed against the guerrilla fighters devastated generations of human beings, animals and vegetation for miles around.
The defoliants were used to expose and flush out Viet Cong guerrillas from the jungle.
"..Agent Orange and other toxins would remain in the food chain for dozens of years, giving rise to birth defects and deformities in humans and animals alike," Dhillon wrote.
This film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1989 BANFF International Film Festival in Canada and earned the title of Best Film Made for Television during the 1990s International Documentary Festival of New York.