books
India
The Prince of Photographers Raja Deen Dayal
A nicely printed and designed book about the foremost Indian photographer during the Raj, Raja Deen Dayal. The book covers many of his finest photographs, and the rise and fall of his studio in Hyderabad. With historic documents, advertisements and other memorabilia, written by a historian of Hyderabad.
Visualing Indian Women 1875-1947
A superb book, with close readings of images loaded with history and crisp observations. Karlekar really knows how to decode photographic gestures. The richness of imagery still available, in this case from private collections all over India, is amazing.Read more
Re-visioning the Past: Early Photography in Bengal 1875-1915
While initial chapters recount well known early Indian photographic history, the next ones comprise an intelligent and thought-provoking analysis of photography in Bengal and the role it played in mediating cultural relations between colonizers and the emerging Bengali middle and upper classes.Read more
Shadows of Empire
An inventive novel, combining past and present, mystery and romance around the infamous Cawnpur Massacre. Aptly spiced with archival photographs. Part of the author's entertaining Hudson House Mystery series.Read more
Dileep Prakash's Memory-Laden Photography
A few nights ago, I had the the chance to see a presentation by one of India's most important contemporary photographers, Dileep Prakash. He has a stunning series of color photographs of Anglo-Indians currently touring Europe's finest galleries. In a few months, a new exhibition opens at Photoink in Delhi. This time his subject is the boarding schools of India in black and white.Read more
Picturing Mountains As Hills: Hill Station Postcards and the Tales They Tell
"The colonial postcard [was] particularly well suited to encode the project of empire," writes the author, who then goes on to explore how hillstation postcards were used to tame the Himalayas.
Another interesting, nicely illustrated by means of a separate slide show, essay from Tasveerghar, the Delhi publishing research archive.
Imaginary Essence
An newspaper feature article by Malaveka Karlekar, author of many books on 19th century photography in India including Re-visioning the Past: Early Photography in Bengal 1875-1915 . She explores themes around the formation of photography studios in India and how they impacted the local population.Read more
One Hundred Vintage Views of India
Bernard J Shapero Rare Books, London and Tasveer, Bangalore are pleased to present this touring exhibition, One Hundred Vintage Views of India. The collection does not by any means attempt to portray a complete group of photographs from the Indian Subcontinent during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Instead, what this show hopes to achieve is to offer a taste of the breadth and depth of this subject. The selection here offers a variety of affordable and rare early photographic prints.Read more
Bourne and Shepherd Still Running
An interesting recent article, Clicking Up the Pieces, in the Times of India picks up the fascinating thread of one of the most famous photographic studios in the world, Bourne & Shepherd in Kolkata.Read more
Samuel Bourne and Colin Murray
The first in a proposed series of exhibitions highlighting the Asian Art Museum in Berlin's South Asian photography collection.Read more
