Flashback time

Ajita Madhavji at Hamilton Studios

A few months ago, this writer had the opportunity to rediscover Hamilton Studios in Ballard Estate. This treasure house for photography, set up back in 1928 by Sir Victor Sassoon of the famous Sassoon family, remains one of the last remnants of Mumbai's (then Bombay) age-old love affair with photography and
photo studios.

According to The Artful Pose: Early Studio Photography in Mumbai (Mapin), the first photograph taken there was of JRD Tata. It is lesser-known gems like these that find their way in the exhaustively researched title that chronicles the origins of the profession in the city, dating back to 1840 when photography arrived here. The book, created as an exhibition catalogue, doubles up as a handy resource guide that has been meticulously put together by Professor Partha Mitter, Ashaya Tankha, Suryanandini Sinha and Rahaab Allana. It was published in association with The Alkazi Collection of Photography and Dr Bhau Lad Mumbai City Museum.

The reader will be exposed to an envious repository of image-making from the mid-19th and early 20 centuries. The city's earliest photo studios, its path-breaking photographers Shapoor Bhedwar, Dr Narayan Daji and S Hormusji, as well its women subjects who broke tradition to face the lens are well documented here. We particularly liked the chapter on Ethnographic Photography in Bombay (1855-70) that artfully showcased Indian professions, castes and communities. The experiments by these studio masters and their overall contribution in the art-historical purview of visualising life and times in early Bombay are an eye-opener.

If you are an aspiring photographer, keen to know how the city warmed up to the art, this book will lay the
ideal foundation.

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