From Lala Deen Dayal (1844-1910), who worked as a court photographer to the Nizam of Hyderabad and the British Raj, to Sunil Janah’s documentary work in the mid-20th century to today’s crop of young successful photographers, the art of photography in India has travelled a long distance.
It reached India less than a year following its invention in 1839. By 1855, even the East India Company had replaced its Draughtsman with Photography as the official mode of documenting local buildings, landscapes, and peoples. However, it took really long to establish Indian photographers on the international map. The story of photography in nineteenth-century India has inevitably been dominated by Europeans. Apart from the few internationally known figures like Lala Deen Dayal and Raghu Rai, Indian photographers have as yet received comparatively little attention on a global scale.
Photographers of post-independent India began dabbling with various forms of photography – industrial, fashion, advertising, architectural, photojournalism, wildlife photography, etc. The 60s saw a few photographers like Kishore Parekh, S. Paul, Raghu Rai and Raghubir Singh gaining international critical attention for their photojournalistic works in the branch of photojournalism and documentary photography. They were then followed by photographers like Pablo Bartholomew, Ketaki Sheth, Sooni Taraporewala, Prashant Panjiar, and Dayanita Singh. The current group of young photographers like Gauri Gill, Sharbendu De, Sohrab Hura, Harish Tyagi, Rituraj Konwar, T Narayan, Soumya Khandelwal and a few others have also been recognized internationally for their work.
The photography scene in India has been going through a change over the last fifteen years. Increasing attention is being paid to Indian photographers both in India and abroad. Galleries dedicated to promoting photography like the Bodhi Art Gallery and Tasveer among others have been set up in India. Unfortunately, numerous talented young photographers find it impossible to find a space and outlets in terms of recognition for their work.
Many photographers in India lament that the tragedy of Indian photojournalism is that it is confined to an elite group of successful photographers. Until concerted efforts are made to help young amateurs access resources, information, or even interact with one’s peers and senior photojournalists, then the progress and development of photography in India and success in the field of photojournalism will remain only with the privileged few.
There have been countless debates in various photography forums about the definition and role of documentary photography. However, what cannot be denied even by the greatest critic of this branch of photography is the ability of documentary photography to inform about someone’s life or social condition and say things about the world in the most powerful way.
In today’s image-saturated society, documentary photography is even more relevant in drawing attention to a wider audience about issues and concerns of the marginalized and the disadvantaged in society in a compelling, attention-grabbing, and visually-interesting way. A documentary photographer can act as a powerful catalyst in helping raise awareness of issues that are often overlooked by the mainstream media catering to a consumerist society. Documentary photography can bridge the gap in our society which television news channels and radio cannot. A photograph on a printed page is much more gripping and holds the viewers’ attention for longer than the flickering images on a television screen.
Given the long history and number of photographers in the country, India has a poor record of photographers doing social photo documentaries, especially the ones that deal with issues affecting the poor and marginalized. Major social issues have already gone unrecorded in terms of photo journalistic documentation in India.
In this first issue we are featuring young photographer Palani Kumar’s work as one of the young emerging social documentary photographers.
On that note, as the Chief Editor of Samyak Drishti, it gives me immense pleasure to launch the first issue of our e-magazine which believes in promoting socially-conscious photographers by providing them a platform to tell their stories. We are here to promote documentary photography that gives voice to the human condition in such a way that it inspires and enables positive change. We’d also traverse back and forth the generations of veteran and contemporary photographers striking conversations with them so that the readers would know a slice of their lives and learn from them. After all, as the late celebrated Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank puts it – “the eye should learn to listen before it looks.”