PHOTOGRAPHY IN VICTORIAN INDIA Author(s): RAY DESMOND Source: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 134, No. 5353 (DECEMBER 1985), pp. 48- 61 Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41374078 Accessed: 11-09-2016 11:23 UTC

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IN VICTORIAN INDIA

I The Sir George Birdwood by by Memorial Lecture I I RAY DESMOND | India Office Library and Records , delivered to the Society on Tuesday 14th May 1985, with Giles Eyre , of Eyre and Hobhouse, in the Chair

THE chairman: As a picture dealer I early interest to me. Ray's second book was Victorian India recognized that photography had to an astonishing in Focus , which introduced me to W. W. Hooper, a degree affected the other visual arts since 1850. 1 also brilliant military amateur whose photography nearly recognized in Ray Desmond a fellow spirit who had finished his career when he was reprimanded in almost tumbled into photography. I say 'almost' Parliament and by the Viceroy for excessive realism. because twelve years at Kew were not spent without He had set up his camera to get photographs of certain access to Fox Talbot's botanical specimens and other Burmese convicts at the precise moment that they natural history photographs. The push came when were struck by the bullets that were to execute them, I Ray transferred to the India Office Library and think in 1886. His third book, with an introduction by Records, becoming Deputy Librarian and Deputy Paul Theroux, was Railways of the Raj. Of all the Keeper. He will tell us how many photographs he British legacies it seems to me that they significantly found in what must be the largest and most varied col- remain, huffing and puffing all over the subcontinent. lection of Indian photographs in the world. 'Un- Curiously, I find that the train from Kalka is still the disturbed', I think, is how he would have described it best way to get to Simla. In Pakistan, nearly forty at the time; but perhaps 'unexplored' would be a more years on, the rules for passengers timelessly include diplomatic term. What he also discovered, despite his headings like 'Awakening passengers at night', devotion to books and records, was that certain photo- 'Ladies travelling alone' and 'Servants in sole charge graphs are capable of communication with an im- of children'. They are deliciously dated. But for me mediacy and impact such as cannot be imparted by the the most evocative photograph in that book was of the written word. fortified railway station at Lahore, built shortly after Ray Desmond's first book, written with Pat Barr, the Mutiny, which was so complicated in its defensive was Simla , A Hill Station in British India. I suppose I layout that as ADC to the then Governor of the Pun- had been waiting for it without knowing ever since I jab I once failed to meet the Chief Justice on time, an had lived in Simla at Barnes Court when I was an enormity which very nearly finished my career. ADC in the final years of the Raj. Apart from the Ray Desmond, I am glad to say, has a career which is photographs in that book there were lithographs, by no means finished. He is presently returning to Kew sketches and watercolours, all of intense and nostalgic and to work for the Linnean Society. Both are lucky.

The following lecture , which was illustrated, was then delivered.

48

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education. It comes as no surprise, therefore, marked the very beginning of photography that at a meeting held in Calcutta on 2nd October IT marked in in COULD India. India. the It wasIt be verywas said a beginninga box box thatof of the variable variable of camera photography size sizewith obscura with a a 1839 he 'gave some details of photographic draw- lens which produced an image of what appeared ing, by means of the sun's light, of which the in front of it on an inclined mirror which in turn principle wholly differs from that of Europe . . . reflected it on to thin paper placed on the base or Professor O'Shaughnessy uses, it seems, a solu- glass top of the box. The outlines of the image tion of gold, and produces many various tints, could be traced on the paper and used as the basis from a light rose colour through purple down to for a more finished drawing. The topographical deep black, and, what is more extraordinary, a artists, Thomas and William Danieli, working green'. This intriguing but tantalizingly brief in India in the late eighteenth century could not account comes from the Asiatic Journal for have achieved their high output without its aid. January/April 1840. Was O'Shaughnessy's The camera obscura was also used by W. H. Fox work a variation of Fox Talbot's photogenic Talbot, who experimented with light-sensitive drawings? paper in the 1830s in an attempt to preserve its Modern photography, that is the production fugitive image. of a negative from which multiple positives can About the same time the Frenchman, Louis be made, evolved from Fox Talbot's experi- Daguerre, succeeded in recording a picture on ments. He exposed sensitized paper in a camera, silvered copper plates sensitized with iodine and treated it with gallo-nitrate of silver, then washed bromine. Every daguerreotype, as it was called, and fixed it with hypo. The negative was brought was unique; it was not possible to make multiple into contact with paper that had been soaked in a copies. The exposure time could range from salt solution and subsequently coated with several minutes to as much as half an hour. ammonia and silver nitrate. Exposure to light Daguerre's invention, patented in 1839, was transferred the image on the negative to the salt the subject of three long articles in the Bombay paper, which was then fixed with hypo and Times in December 1839. There is reason to washed. Fox Talbot patented his invention in believe that at least one daguerreotype camera 1841, calling it 'Calotype' from the Greek root was in use in Calcutta as early as 1840. In 1844 meaning a beautiful. It was also known as Talbo- Monsieur F. M. Montairo, announced to the type. citizens of Calcutta that he was 'prepared to take Towards the close of 1848 a Mr F. Schanzhofer likenesses by the Daguerreotype process'. started In a business in Calcutta as a calotype 1868 when daguerreotypes had been superseded photographer. Calotype cameras were soon in Europe by the calotype and collodion processes, widely used in India by both professional and F. W. Baker of Calcutta was still being listed amateur by photographers, who did not need to be Thacker's Post Office Directory as a 'Daguerreo- reminded by the Journal of the Photographic typisť. Most of the surviving daguerreotypes Society in London that 'Indian photographers are portraits, but occasionally, as happened would a do well to turn more of their attention to few years ago, the rare landscape appears in the the calotype process which is so simple and cer- sale rooms. The delicate hand-tinting on some tain in its effects'.1 daguerreotypes was sometimes the work of minia- The long time-exposure was one of the dis- ture painters whose traditional livelihood advantages had of the calotype process - it could been lost with the advent of photography. range This between three and seven minutes for land- hand-tinting was usually achieved by applying scapes. Jesse Mitchell, Adjutant of the 1st Native coloured powder with a fine brush and fixing Veteran it Battalion, 'took a good negative of the to the plate with gum arabic. Catholic Cathedral in nine minutes, between 3 William O'Shaughnessy, who joined the Eastand 4 pm; the paper having been excited about India Company as an assistant surgeon in 1833, half an hour previous to exposure in the camera . . . was unquestionably a polymath. Not only There was were some deep shadows, the detail in he the founder of service in Indiawhich is fairly rendered: the Cassarina trees also but during his thirty years in that country would he have been tolerably well represented, had it wrote on subjects as diverse as batteries, electric not blown very hard at the time.'2 Until the col- motors, lightning rods, chemistry, physics, lodion process became available instantaneous pharmacology, botany, philology and medical photography was not always successful. 49

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Fever hospital under construction at Calcutta. By F. Fiebig. Early 1850s. All photographs illustrating this lecture are reproduced by permission of the India Office Library and Records.

Royal litters under a shed at Tsagain Myo, Burma. By Linnaeus Tripe. 1855 50

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Ruins of Residency at Lucknow. By Felice Beato, 1858

The collodion camera, Samuelrevealed Bourne madeto thehis first world photographic ex- in 1851, reduced the exposure pedition in the time Himalayas for in 1863land- he needed scapes to as little as 30 thirtyto 120 porters seconds. to carry allThe his photographicglass negatives were much more equipment finely and provisions. detailed than calotype negatives. A glass I show plate you thewas equipment coated for with collodion or a solution of iodized collodion wet-plate photography and just that Colonel before Henry Wood exposure sensitized in a usedsolution in India: ofcamera, silver tripod, nitrate. lenses, carrying As the plate had to be cases,developed chemicals andand a miniature fixed darkroom. im- And mediately after exposure, this would bea stackeddarkroom perilously on was one's back if obligatory. Out in the one field were unfortunate it was enoughusually to have an to carry it. enclosed waggon such It isas not Roger surprising, Fenton therefore, thatused despite the during the Crimean war technical or a portableimprovements tent offered which by collodion, Samuel Bourne took with him on his there were photographers in India who preferred photographic forays in India. One photographer the slower but less cumbersome calotype process. boasted that it only took him four to five Twominutes years after the launching of the collodion to get his tent erected and all his chemicals process, ready J. B. Dancer, a Manchester optician, in- for use. The collodion photographer vented was the binocular camera and in 1854 the burdened by the enormous amount ofLondon equip- Stereoscopic Company was formed to ment he had to take with him on his travels: promote por- the sale of stereophotographs. With the table darkroom, boxes of glass plates, aidchemicals of a cheap hand viewer, stereoscopic views of for sensitizing, developing and fixing other and, countries of provided some of the pleasures course, camera, lenses and tripod. of When vicarious foreign travel. In 1857 members of 51

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the Madras Photographic Society were told how to adapt an ordinary camera to take stereoscopic views.3 The London publisher, J. Hogarth, had sets of stereoscopic views of India for sale. Lin- naeus Tripe's Stereographs of Madura and Stereographs of Trichinopoly , Tanjore and Other Places in Their Neighbourhood ' both published in in 1858, were among the earliest books on India illustrated with stereophotographs. In his introduction to Robert Gill's One Hun- dred Stereoscopic Illustrations of Architecture and Natural History in India (London, 1864) the architectural historian, James Fergusson, com- mended the photographs. They 'tell their own story far more clearly than any form of words that could be devised, and even without the text they form by far the most perfect and satisfactory illustration of the ancient architecture of India which has yet been presented to the public'. Five years later he had changed his mind: 'stereo- aurais!* - -чияк: "пэд им HI i иц- scopes and those of less dimensions, though very 'Lowana women': The Oriental Races and Tribes: beautiful are not suited for scientific purposes. It Residents and Visitors of Bombay. A Series of is hardly ever possible to make out the details of Photographs, by William Johnson. London, 1863 architecture in small photographs with sufficient played in Hogarth's Gallery in December 1857 distinctness to reason upon them in a satisfactory and subsequently published as Photographic manner.'4 Views in Agra and Its Vicinity (London, 1858) Fox Talbot's insistence on the observance of and were also available as separate prints. In his patent rights to the calotype process and the 1859 Hogarth published another selection of punitive fees he charged for its commercial use Murray's work under the title of Picturesque effectively delayed the expansion of photography Views in the North-Western Provinces of India in this country. When he failed in the celebrated and advertised that he now had a large collection case of Talbot versus Laroche in 1854 to extend of photographs and stereoscopic views of India his monopoly to Archer's collodion process he in stock. withdrew his application to renew his calotype With the spread of photography in the Indian patent and photography in the United Kingdom subcontinent it was inevitable that enthusiasts at last became available to anyone who could should get together to discuss and display their afford the equipment. Commercial photography photographs. The first such group was the Bombay boomed. Travel photography was especially Photographic Society, established in October popular and Francis Frith with his views of 1854 with the Governor, Lord Elphinstone, as Egypt and the Holy Land was its most successful Patron. With commendable speed the first issue exponent. The public demand for photographs of of its Journal appeared the following year. A exotic places and people prompted the Reverend meeting at the Town Hall in Calcutta on 2nd Joseph Mullins to expatiate on the charms of January 1856 resolved to form the Photographic India. 'India presents to us perhaps as fine a field Society of Bengal and, emulating Bombay, it as any single country in the world. It contains . . . also produced a Journal. Lady Canning, who all the varieties of Oriental Life, of Oriental was its Patroness, performed a similar function Scenery, Oriental Nations and Oriental Man- for the Photographic Society of Madras, also ners, and it is open to us to explore these peculi- established in 1856. The membership of the arities to the last degree while enjoying a perfectly Photographic Society of Bengal, which numbered European security. There is a deep and growing 88, including four women, in 1857, had reached interest now felt in Europe in everything Indian.' 5 nearly 250 by 1863. This momentum in member- Thirty of John Murray's photographs were dis- ship was not maintained and the Photographic 52

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its manipulation a portion of their studies'.8 At their monthly meeting on 26th November 1856, the Photographic Society of Bengal examined 'a series of seven views taken on the line of the Railway chiefly near the heavy cuttings and tun- nelling in the neighbourhood of Monghyr. These were taken by Mr Stewart, Assistant Engineer of the Railway Company. . . . They offered the most accurate possible pictures of the nature of the soil and massive rock through which these cuttings are being carried, as well as of every part of the engineering machinery and appliances made use of in the prosecution of the work.'9 The photographers employed by the Public Works Department were often seconded army personnel with trained native assistants. The Court of Directors of the East India Com- pany had already recommended in 1854 to the Government of Bombay 'the encouragement of the study of this useful art of photography in any of the scientific or educational institutions under the control or influence of your Government A portrait from a collection and we shall be preparedof photographs to furnish you with the of the peoples of East Bengal requisite in apparatusthe Indiaif you find Office it necessary toLibrary. Early 1860s procure them from this country'.10 It was in- News for 13th October 1876 announced that tended that Indians trained at colleges and schools unless members and income increased the Society would subsequently find employment in the would have to be dissolved. Public Works, Trigonometrical or Revenue It was only a matter of time before official uses Survey Departments or in some aspea of archae- for photography were being explored and recom- ological work. mended. Norman Chevers, a surgeon in the The taking of some daguerreotypes during the Bengal Army, thought that 'before many years Mexican War of 1846-8 is probably the earliest have elapsed [photography would] be employed instance of military photography. John McCosh, throughout India as a means of identifying a surgeon on the staff of the Bengal Establish- bodies, anticipating the disfigurement of rapid ment of the East India Company's army from decay, and enabling the Magistrate and the Civil 1831, took some calotype portraits of his fellow Surgeon to examine in their offices, every detail officers during the Second Sikh War in 1848-9. of a scene of bloodshed, as it appeared when first He also photographed captured military equip- disclosed to the police'.6 The Reverend Joseph ment at Rangoon while serving with the 5th Mullins also saw many potential uses for the Battery, Bengal Artillery, in the Second Burma camera. Criminals, for instance, could be photo- War in 1852. McCosh was the forerunner of a graphed for police records. Before new roads school of soldier photographers whose ranks and canals were built photographic surveys included such distinguished practitioners as 'would exhibit the nature of the ground they are Captain H. J. Barr (the first President of the to traverse, the gradients in which they can be Bombay Photographic Society and the inventor made, and the difficulties that lie in the way'.7 of a portable dark tent), Captain T. Biggs, Major The application of photography to public R. Gill, Captain E. D. Lyon, Captain L. Tripe works projects had already been appreciated by and Major R. C. Tytler. The East India Com- Colonel Fabers, Chief Engineer of Public pany from 1855 included photography in the Works at Madras, in 1855: 'how probable it is curriculum of cadets at its Military Seminary at that, ere long, photographic apparatus will form Addiscombe near Croydon. From 1856 the Royal part of the equipment of all officers of the Depart- Engineers at Chatham also received tuition in ment of Public Works, and their acquaintance with photography. Among the despatches for 1858 of 53

This content downloaded from 193.50.135.4 on Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:23:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS PROCEEDINGS the Military Department of the India Office late isin 1858 to take up photography in order to one approving 'the construction at the publichelp his wife in her panoramic painting of the expense of a doolie [i.e. a palanquin] by RedMajor Fort at Delhi. Although still a novice Tytler N. O. Lennox commanding 23rd Company exhibited photographs of places connected with Royal Engineers for the conveyance ofthe the Mutiny at a meeting in May 1859 of the photographic apparatus received for use Bengalin the Photographic Society which unreservedly field, and the employment of six bearers to pronounced carry them to be 'the finest that had ever the doolie in question'.11 The need for been six laid before the Society'. porters gives some idea of the bulk and weight John of Burke, a professional photographer, photographic equipment in those days. with The studios at Peshawar and Murree, was invited Calcutta , The Englishman , in byrepor- the Government of India in March 1879 to ting an exhibition of the Bengal Photographic join the Peshawar Valley Field Force as an official Society in 1874, specially mentioned the photo-photographer. Other photographers from the graphs submitted by the Royal Engineers whichfirm of Bourne and Shepherd were also covering 'reflect great credit on the instruction given the to campaign, but it is Burke's photographs the military photographers who are sent which from provide the most graphic record of the Chatham to all parts of the world'. Second Afghan War. Felice Beato and his brother-in-law, James Part of the duties of surveyors of the East India Robertson, were engaged in photography Companyin the was to record any ancient monuments eastern Mediterranean when the sepoys rebelled they encountered during their work. In 1855 the in India in 1857. In February 1858 Beato landedCompany recommended to the Presidencies in at Calcutta to record some of the scenes of India the that they cease 'employing draughtsmen to conflict. Amongst his celebrated photographs, copy Indian antiquities and make use instead of executed with a clinical clarity, are the shattered photography, 'with the advantages of perfect barracks at Cawnpore held by Wheeler, accuracy, small expenditure of time and moderate the Kashmir Gate at Delhi stormed by the cash101st ... We shall be prepared to forward the Fusiliers, the Residency and th£ Secundra necessary Bagh apparatus for the use of any of our at Lucknow. Nearly 2,000 sepoys defending Governments the which may make application for building and walled garden of the Secundra them'.12 Captain Robert Gill, who had been Bagh were slaughtered on 16th November seconded 1857 from his duties in the Madras Army in by British forces commanded by Sir 1846Colin to copy the murals in the Ajanta Caves, took Campbell. By the time Beato arrived there stereoscopic in views of the caves and the neigh- April or May 1858 the bodies had been removed bourhood. A selection of them was published in or buried. Sir George Campbell, the Judicial London in 1864: One Hundred Stereoscopic Illus- Commissioner in Lucknow, recalled intrations his of Architecture and Natural History in memoirs that Beato had insisted on having Western some India and The Rock-cut Temples of India. of the remains uncovered before photographing The Illustrated London News reminded its the Secundra Bagh. One of his best known readers in 1852 that Madras had an abundance photographs is of the hanging of some sepoys. of native architecture and archaeological remains: According to an eyewitness account 'thereBeato is, perhaps, no quarter of the globe that steadied the swaying bodies before calmly presentsphoto- such a fine field for the T albotype as the graphing the scene. There was no public protestMadras Presidency'. Captain Linnaeus Tripe, about the morality of taking such photographs who had served as official photographer to the yet when the Provost Marshal, W. W. Hooper, British Mission to the Court of Ava in Burma in photographed the execution of three Burmese 1855, was appointed photographer by the Madras dacoits in 1886, his action provoked questions Government in in 1856. His brief was to take Parliament, the condemnation of the Viceroy photographs in the Presidency and to teach and a public reprimand by a court of inquiry, photography at the Madras School of Industrial which deplored Colonel Hooper's 'most callousArts. and indecorous behaviour'. Both General Alexander Cunningham, who Dr. John Murray, who photographed the became Archaeological Surveyor in 1861 and the aftermath of the Mutiny at Delhi and Cawnpore, Governor-General, Lord Canning, saw the camera instructed Major Robert Tytler when he decided as an essential tool in archaeological field work 54

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Ajanta Caves. By Robert Gill. One Hundred Stereoscopic Illustrations of Architecture and Natural History in Western India, by R. Gill and J. Fergusson. London, 1864 and so did James Fergusson, London the International eminent archi- Exhibition the following tectural historian. Cunningham year. 'Each and Local Fergusson Government is expected to contributed to a Report collect on theinto Illustration one collection of such photographic Archaic Architecture of likenesses India of thewhich races and classeswas within submitted its to the India Office bordersin 1869 as it may obtainby andJohn furnish a veryForbes brief Watson, the Director notice of of the each.' Dr India В. Simpson, Museum who contributed in London. This report torecognized this International Exhibition, 'photography was subsequently as a means of affording engaged a truthfulin an official photographic delineation survey of the of structures of every description, people of Bengal. Lithographs and of in impartingE. T. Dalton's an accurate impression of their architectural features'. Archaeologists in India were becoming aware of the utility of the camera. John Burke, a professional photographer, accompanied H. H. Cole, the Superintendent of the Archaeological Survey for the North-West Provinces, on his survey of Kashmir in 1868. It became customary for the published reports of the Archaeological Survey to be embellished with photographs. At least twenty-eight photographers, professional and amateur, are known to have worked for the Archaeological Survey during its formative years. The enthnic diversity of India attracted the attention of photographers as much as its palaces, forts and temples. The Indian Amateur's Photo- graphic Album (Bombay, 1856-8), edited by William Johnson and William Henderson, con- tains some of the earliest published photographs of its people. A series of studio photographs by William Johnson appeared in his Oriental Races and Tribes : Residents and Visitors of Bombay (London, 1863-6). In 1861 a Government Todaof women India : The Peoplememorandum of India, by J. Forbes requested photographs Watson of and native Sir John W. peopleKaye. London, 1875,for Vol. the 8 55

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Houses on the River Jhelum at Srinagar. By Samuel Bourne. 1864

Descriptive Ethnology of sittersBengal that I wonder (Calcutta, more amateurs don't 1872) go in were based on some of his for genrephotographs. pictures and studies'.13 His experience One of the earliest major was not always ethnographical shared by other photographers, works to exploit photographs who found villagers,was especiallyThe inPeople remote areas, of India , edited by J. Forbes suspicious Watson and uneasy before and the camera. J. OneK. Kaye and published by the exasperated India photographer Museum exclaimed: 'Onlyin London. Its eight volumes, point a camerapublished at a native, and notwithstandingbetween 1868 and 1875, contain 468 his natural photographs grace, suppleness of limb, repre- and easy senting the work of at least carriage fifteen and bearing photographers,when taken unawares, from selected from a large collection fear of being shot,of or printsconverted into somein uncouth the India Museum. animal by means of necromancy, he becomes on The Andaman Islands and the primitive life seeing you, as rigid as the camera-stand, or of their inhabitants attracted some notable moves away altogether, or neither moves nor photographers: Oscar Mallitte, the French stays.'14 Even the persuasive Samuel Bourne photographer, was there in 1857; Edward Horace found that 'by no amount of talking and acting Man arrived in 1869, retiring in 1901 as Deputy could I get them to stand or sit in an easy, natural Superintendent. During the 1890s, M. V. attitude. Their idea of giving life to a picture was Portman, Extra Assistant Superintendent at to stand bolt upright, with their arms down stiff Port Blair, photographed the Andamanese 'inas pokers, their chins turned up as if they were all their different occupations and modes of life' standing to have their throats cut.'15 for the British Museum. He shot his single figures Samuel Bourne, a capable amateur photo- against a screen of chequered squares, a device grapher from Nottingham, disembarked in also used in W. E. Marshall's A Phrenologist Calcutta in January 1863 in search of the pic- Among the Todas (London, 1873). turesque in the Indian landscape. Over the next It was Portman who found natives 'such good four years, with a retinue of porters to carry his 56

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geometry of perspective, exploit the fortuitous pattern of shadows and of reflections in water and make use of devices like solitary, pensive figures in the landscape to provide both scale and a feeling of reverie. When the Photographic Society of Bengal was formed in 1856 Indians were appointed to the posts of Secretary and Treasurer. Indians quickly mastered the techniques of photo- graphy. At a meeting of the Society on 29th October 1856 a Lieutenant Lewin reported that 'there was a native in the city of Lucknow who took excellent photographic likenesses on glass, which were not however quite clear when transferred to paper'.16 The native was Ahmad Ali Khan, of whom the Chaplain at Lucknow, the Reverend Henry Polehampton, writing to his brother in April 1857 said 'he is a very gentlemanly man, a Mahommedan, and most liberal. He won't take anything for his likenesses. He gives you freely as many as you The Great Temple at Sri Rangam near Trichinopoly. want, and takes no end of trouble. I have no By E. D. Lyon. Mid-1 860s doubt his chemicals etc., must cost him more photographic equipment and provisions, than £100 he per annum, at the least.'17 The India made three expeditions into the Himalayas. Office Library He possesses two albums of faded crossed the Manirung Pass at 18,600 salt feet prints where of the European residents in Luck- he managed to take three photographs now beforetaken by Ahmad Ali Khan during 1856 clouds obscured the view - then the and highest early 1857. These albums, which had been altitude at which any photograph acquired had been by W. H. Russell, the celebrated taken. About 1864 he entered into partnershipTimes correspondent, after the relief of Luck- with Charles Shepherd, and by the time now Bourneare a poignant record of the many Euro- returned to England in 1869 the firm peans of Bourne who lost their lives during the siege. and Shepherd had become the premier Ahmad photo- Ali Khan became one of the rebel graphic establishment in India. His leaders technical but was subsequently pardoned under proficiency was admired by his contemporaries: the Governor-General's amnesty. in particular the lack of blemishes in Courseshis prints in photography were available at and their clarity, sharpness and depth. some technical colleges and by the mid 1850s A report on a photographic exhibition there were inIndians sufficiently skilled to set Madras in 1857 regretted that 'few themselves photo- up in business in Calcutta and graphers pay attention to some of theBombay. simplest Readers of the British Journal of rules of Art, and the consequence isPhotography that they were assured that 'the wealthier pass by or neglect some of the best nativesubjects inhabitants and . . . have taken almost as a are at a loss to know what will make body a picture'.to the study of photography'.18 But their This criticism could never be made of Samuel enthusiastic acceptance of photography did not Bourne. He knew instinctively how to compose impress the art critic, T. N. Mukharji, who a picture. At a meeting of the Madras Photo- maintained that Indians 'do not bestow on their graphic Society in December 1860 the speaker work the necessary amount of patience and care. gave some advice on composition to his audience. As a consequence, therefore, native productions, 'If you want to give importance to a figure or a with very few exceptions do not possess such a landscape, view it from below, with plenty of good reputation as those turned out by European sky to set it off.' By the mid 1860s most photo- firms. The best photographs turned out by a graphers were familiar with the basic rules of native of India are the Indian views executed by composition and could manipulate the compelling Lala Din Dayal of Indor.'19 57

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John Burke preparing a collodion plate. The Graphic, 12th July 1879, 25

Prisoners with an escort of 45th Rattray's òtkhs during 2nd Afghan War , 1878-80. By John Burke 58

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Mausoleum of Birsing Deo at Urcha. By Lala Deen Dayal. 1882

Lala Deen Dayal, an colours employee that often completely ofconcealed the the Depart- ment of Works, became original photograph. seriously interested in photography when he In assessing was photographs about in Victorian thirty. India In 1865 he was made court one photographer should always make allowances for theto prob- the Nizam of and before lems besetting photographersthe century in those pioneering was out he had his own studios days, and especiallyin Bombay, those peculiar to the tropics. Indore and Secunderabad. His Thezenana time when the mention studio of Indian photographs in Hyderabad was in the charge suggestedof massesMrs of soot Kenny-Levick, and whitewash is gone by. the wife of the editor of the Deccan Times. Here We have no longer the crude, black foliage, and chalky Indian women in purdah could be photographed white buildings, white sky, and white water; or pictures of magnificent temples with harsh glinting lights and protected 'from the gaze of the profane and the black heavy shadows, without delicacy or detail, the stern'. Deen Dayal recorded with a shrewd but beautiful tracery and rare carving in the architecture sympathetic eye the feudal splendour of princely being half lost. It was at one time believed among India. photographers that partly owing to the rapid decom- Artists in Delhi seized upon photography as a position of some of the chemicals and partly to the short cut to producing portrait miniatures. A intensely glaring light and cloudless skies, anything photograph would be carefully traced on a sheet like delicacy and harmony in photographs of tropical of ivory, touched up and then coloured with climates was almost impossible. watercolours. The artist, Val Prinsep, dismayed Many of the problems had been solved by new to witness this perversion of traditional skills, techniques and materials when that statement strongly deplored their working 'from photo- appeared in the Photographic News on 21st May graphs, and never by any chance from nature'. 1869. One of the difficulties besetting calotypes The photographs themselves were often painted, was the long exposure time they required. Con- not with the delicate washes of colour that sequently the time of the day when they were Frederick Fiebig usually applied to his photo- taken could be critical. Early morning, when graphs in the early 1850s, but with strong opaque there was no glare from the rising sun, was 59

This content downloaded from 193.50.135.4 on Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:23:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS PROCEEDINGS considered best. About 8 o'clock in the morning in a temperature of 90° Fahrenheit, and fre- the wind usually got up, stirring the branches quently how uncertain it becomes from day to and leaves of trees and shrubs and making day itas regards the length of exposure required to impossible to photograph them with the take slow a picture, whether portrait or landscape. calotype cameras. An appreciative review Many of kinds of collodion which are found to Linnaeus Tripe's work at the Society's exhibi- answer the purpose perfectly at home prove tion in 1859 singled out his photograph even of an on their first arrival in India to be in an un- umbrella tree (Acacia?) at Trivium. 'This satisfactory tree state and decompose so rapidly forms an exception to the generality of trees when in iodizeda as to be next to useless.'22 Calo- photographic point of view, in as much as ittypes, is so too, especially the waxed negatives, rigid and consequently a good subject presented for technical difficulties. 'The intense photography, which cannot be said of most heat trees of the sun melts the wax, and the prints are which are so readily blown about by the toowind, frequently found to be spotted and spoilt rendering it extremely difficult to obtainwith this material, the defect in some cases only anything like a good portrait of them, except being in discovered after they have been toned and the most perfect calm, a rare atmospherical fixed.' con- This opinion, however, was not sup- dition even in this latitude.' ported by the Secretary of the Bombay Photo- W. H. Warner expressed with great feeling graphic Society, who maintained that for 'general his experiences of photography in India in the utility and certainty of action in the warm climate British Journal of Photography in 1863. 'There of India, none can be compared with the waxed is that evil which in Europe is bad enough but in paper process'.23 India is a million times worse - I mean heat - With all this contradictory evidence and which dries up the plate [i.e. collodion plate], experience one is led to conclude that there was rendering it more and more insensitive every an element of luck as well as skill in photography moment, and also communicates to the operator in India a hundred years ago. a lassitude which almost wholly unfits him for As cameras became more portable and the duties of the day.'20 He mentioned dust simpleras to use, the element of luck diminished another hazard which could mar a negative with and the photographer also had George Ewing's a shower of dots. substantial Handbook of Photography for Amateurs During the monsoons lenses would be covered in India (Calcutta, 1895) to assist him. He also with a fungous growth, springs rusted, shutter had a standard of excellence in the work of those blinds became sluggish and mildew spoilt stocks pioneering photographers who have left us an of photographic paper. One luckless photographer invaluable record not only of the impact of the in Bengal in 1856 lost a whole year's work British on South Asia but also of an ancient through damp affecting his plates. culture which was rapidly changing. The damp and the heat were also capable of REFERENCES splitting and distorting camera cases. 'A good 1 . Journal of the Photographic Society, no. 28, 20th March 1855, 173. rigid camera, with folding tailboard, made of well- 2. Madras Journal of Literature and Science , Vol. 17, 1856, 76. seasoned mahogany or walnut, and brass-bound, 3. Ibid., Vol. 18, 1857, 253-7. is the only one that will stand this climate'21 was 4. J. Forbes Watson, Report on the Illustration of Archaic Archi- the firm conviction of one experienced Indian tecture of India, etc., London, 1869, 19. 5. Journal of the Photographic Society of Bengal ' no. 2, 21st Jan. photographer. 1857, 33-8. At their workshops in Peckham in South East 6. N. Chevers, Manual of Medical Jurisdiction for Bengal and the London, Frederick and Arthur Gandolfi made North-Western Provinces, 1856, 40. 7. Journal of the Photographic Society of Bengal, no. 2, 21st Jan. cameras for India with specially-scented Russian 1857, 33-8. leather bellows to deter insects from eating into 8. India Office Records E/4/842, Vol. 103. Military letter no. 27 them. of 1857, para 8. 9. Journal of the Photographic Society of Bengal, no. 2, 1857. The Madras Photographic Society could not 10. India Office Records F/4/2725, Board's Collections 198064, decide whether to recommend collodion or no. 297, para 3, 1856. 11. India Office Records L/MIL/3/78, Military Department, no. calotype for the photographer in India. If he 144 of 1858. chose collodion 'he very soon discovers the 12. India Office Records E/4/829, Vol. 90, Public Letter no. 22 of treacherous nature of the material to which he 1855, para 3. 13. Journal of the Photographic Society of India, Nov. 1892, 192. has to trust, how rapidly it becomes deteriorated 14. British Journal of Photography, 1st Aug. 1862, 300. 60

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15. Ibid., 25th Jan. 1867, 39. 19. T. N. Mukharji, Art-manufactures of India, 1888,30-31. 16. Journal of the Photographic 20. British Society Journal of Photography, of Bengal,16th Nov. 1863,444-5. Vol. 1, no. 2, 1857, 27. 21. Photographic News, 4th Nov. 1864, 533-4. 17. Rev. Henry Polehampton, A Memoir, Letters and Diary . . . 22. Madras Journal of Literature and Science, New series, Vol. 5, London, 1858, 224-5. 1859, 176-7. 18. British Journal of Photography, 8th July 1864, 239. 23. Photographic News, Vol. 2, 1859, 254-6.

DISCUSSION

THE CHAIRMAN: Could y ou tell us sure something that no abouttwo photographs touch each other. Ensure- conservation, which is a problem thatfor theanyone conditions who in which you house them are suit- from time to time buys an old photograph? able: the colder the better, but dry and not damp. For anybody interested in the conservation of pho- the LECTURER: The conservation tographs of photo- there is a magazine called Photographic Con- graphs is very much in its infancy and servation people are published still by the Rochester Institute of finding their way. Certain things cannot Technology be done. in We America which provides the latest cannot, for instance, delay the chemical developments degradation on of the subject. a photograph. If it is fading, it will go on fading. The Lucknow Album, which I showed, contains MR ARTHUR salt prints T. GILL, BSc, HonFRPS: Could I just which are fading; I believe by the turn make of thea comment century about early photography which is all we will have left with be little mostsquares relevant of white to this place. In 1852, in this room - I paper. We rephotographed all these photographsbelieve it was using in December - there was a major ex- a blue filter, which in fact brought hibition out the of details photographs. It was from that exhibition much more clearly than in the faded that originals. the Photographic The Society of Great Britain was original photographs have now been formed, put away a society and that became the Royal Photographic these copies are used by anybody Society.who wants So theto dosetting in which we have heard about research on them. Glass negatives early are photography obviously in India this evening is indeed an fragile. The sensible thing to do is rephotograph apt one. them and to store the originals. What does one do with photographs THE in LECTURER: albums? Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Gill Many of the Victorian albums are composedis Honorary of Curator very of the Royal Photographic Society. thick card which has now become brittleIf you requirethrough an a outline of the photographic pro- high acid content. The acid is probably cesses migrating of the last to century, may I recommend Mr Gill's the photographs. The only solution isPhotographic to remove very Processes , A Glossary and a Chart for carefully the photographs from their Recognition acid mounts. , published by the Museums Association This can be done in two ways. One in can 1978. either pain- stakingly lift the photograph off and with a scapel remove all the bits of the mounts from THE theCHAIRMAN: back, Ladiesor and Gentlemen, I am float the photograph on water, making sure sureyou would not like to meget to thank Ray Desmond very water on the front of the photograph. much The indeed photograph for the great range of his lecture and the should then be stored in an acid-free care sleeve. with which Do hemake gave it.

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