The Magical Tool: History of Photography in india Since 1840
Gaurav Kumar
Without the natural gift of artistic expression, all the art knowledge in the world will, in nine cases out of ten, when applied to photography prove futile. It could be said that camera obscura marked the very beginning in India. It was a box of variable size with a lens which produced an image of what appeared in front of it on an inclined mirror which in turn reflected it on to thin paper placed on the base or glass top of the box. the outlines of the image could be traced on the paper and used as the basis for a more finished drawing. the topographical artists, thomas and William daniel, working in India in the late eighteenth century could not have achieved their high output without its aid. the camera obscura was also used by W. h. Fox talbot, who experimented with light-sensitive paper in the 1830s in an attempt to preserve its fugitive image. about the same time the Frenchman, louis daguerre, succeeded in recording a picture on silvered copper plates sensitized with iodine and bromine. every daguerreotype, as it was called, was unique; it was not possible to make multiple copies. the exposure time could range from several minutes to as long as half an hour. daguerre’s invention, patented in 1839, was the subject of three long articles in the Bombay times in december 1839. there is reason to believe that at least one daguerreotype camera was in use in Calcutta as early as 1840. soon after the daguerreotype was invented in 1844 in France, the cameras were advertised in Calcutta. as photography was practiced in the west, it too came to India and was used to document places and people. the camera officially reached India in 1855. however, it was not until much later that it was picked up as a career or even an alternative kind of art form.
The first group of photography
was the ‘Bombay Photographic
Society’, established in October
1854 with the Governor, Lord
Elphinstone, as Patron. With
commendable speed the first
issue of its Journal appeared
the following year. A meeting
at the Town Hall in Calcutta on
2nd January 1856 resolved to
form the Photographic Society
of Bengal and, emulating
Bombay, it also produced a
Journal.
