Raja Deen Dayal: An Unforgettable Artist & Prince of Photographers
Gaurav Kumar

hile the world of Indian princes adopted the British raj, an Indian photographer rose to a place of great prominence and honor. he was lala deen dayal (1840-1905). originally from sardhana, near meerut, deen dayal had apparently risen by his wits to enroll in thomason Civil engineering College in roorkee in the mid 1860s.the school had been established by mr. thomason, lieutenant governor of the North Western Province (Present – day Indian Punjab and Pakistan), and was open to both Indians and europeans. For the young deen dayal, it would have provided an excellent introduction to British Indian civil administration. after his initial training, he gained a position as “head estimator and draftsman” with the public works department at Indore, and thus his career was launched. roorkee College played a formative role in its teaching of photography as an important new tool for recording Indian subjects. though his training was not in photography per se, it is not too surprising that deen dayal applied himself to the medium as well. even at this early stage he found support from the upper classes of British as well as Indian society while stationed at Indore, including sir henry daly, whom deen dayal credits in a memoir as having encouraged him in his first efforts with the camera. he began photographing in the mid 1870s, becoming a master in the delicate art of developing glass plate negatives and albumen prints and producing what are still some of the most stunning views of the architecture and landscape of northern India. according to his memoirs he was thus able to obtain the patronage of lord North Brook, the governor general of India in 1874.

Until the arrival of ‘ Raja Deen Dayal’, British photographers expressly dominated the medium where they captured and documented the architectural marvels of this land. It is said, in an age when there were no sophisticated equipment, Deen Dayal could shoot a monument in all its splendor, bring architecture to life, take breathtaking portraits, photograph over 300 people seated with amazing detail, shoot a march past and other candid photos without a flaw and even freeze a bullet by using apertures speeds of up to 1/1000th of a second.