Over 40 iconic images of India taken nearly 150 years ago by celebrated British photography pioneers, who gracefully combined artistic composition with commercial enterprise in the analogue era, are part of an exhibition here that seeks to reintroduce the legendary duo to a contemporary audience.
From the picturesque Taj Mahal in the north to pristine Ooty in the south, and from detailed architectural studies to vivid portraits of people, Samuel Bourne and Charles Shepherd not only skillfully captured the vintage 19th century India, they visually reintroduced the country to the western world.
Titled 'Figures in Time: Bourne & Shepherd', the display hosted by Bangalore-based Tasveer Arts, is currently playing at Exhibit 320 art gallery in south Delhi after travelling through four cities -- Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Delhi, in that order.
Out of 41 photographs on display sourced from Bangalore based Museum of Art and Photography, 17 are original images while rest are "digitally blown-up versions" that "magnify" the details of the smaller analogue pictures while "matching" its original tone.
"While the original photographs were very small, they contained a lot of details and information as they were shot on a large plate camera. This really lent them to being blown up. It took us six months to put it together, with two months spent on retouching the images.
"We made high-resolution scans and retouched the images to reveal all the hidden details, and printed the enlarged prints to match the tones of 19th century photographs," a team member from Tasveer told PTI.
So, while a viewer can enjoy the original prints of Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri and a heritage Darjeeling Himalayan Railway train doing its famous loop, a cathedral in Calcutta (now Kolkata) or Audrey House in Ooty, one can also visually feast on the digitally magnified and faithfully reproduced images of the ruins of the Lucknow Residency, Hooghly shipping yard, ghats of Varanasi, Safdarjung Tomb of Delhi and the opulent Taj Mahal.
Other digitally enhanced photographs include Cawnpore Memorial Well (now Kanpur), Kolkata's Clive Street view and its Government House, Secunderabad, Esplanade in Bombay (now Mumbai), aerial view of the city from atop Jama Masjid, Paigah Tomb, all taken during the period of 1860-1880.
"The juxtaposition of vintage photographs and modern reprints in this exhibition also reflects the development of photographic technology in the last 150 years. Our present-day ability to produce images with such rapid ease, in many ways, serves to accentuate the difficult physical circumstances under (and despite) which these photographs were originally produced," she said.
A former clerk in a Nottingham bank, Bourne arrived in
India in 1863 and abandoned his position in favour of a photographic career in the country.
Initially partnering with William Howard, Bourne set up the Howard & Bourne studio in Shimla. They were joined by Charles Shepherd, and with the leaving of William Howard, the studio dropped his name to become Bourne & Shepherd.
In 1866, in alignment with a growing culture of studio-photography, the Bourne & Shepherd establishment set up a branch in Calcutta, where it soon became one of the most prestigious studios of its time.
"Part of the idea behind the exhibition was to reintroduce 'Bourne and Shepherd' to a contemporary audience. Photography is such a ubiquitous medium today, but few people actually stop to think who the pioneers of the medium were, or its significance in the history of visual culture of the country.
"As well as providing historical documents and records relating to the topographical spectrum of India in the 19th century, Bourne and Shepherd's significance is also to do with how they combined the artistic side of the medium, with commercial enterprise - creating a photographic brand and legacy," the Tasveer team member said.
She said the photographs also act as a reminder of how much the country of has changed with the passage of time.
"If one considers the context in which these photographs were taken (of a colonised country), and the context now (of an independent country), that's a huge gap - and India, and the world, has changed so much.
"On the other hand, what's also interesting is that actually, some of these scenes could still exist today; the views of the ghats in Varanasi, for example. It goes to show how much history does in fact exist in the present in India, and how despite moving forward, there remain lingering traces of the past," she said.
But, some places like Clive Street in Calcutta has changed
dramatically, the streetscape bearing a drastically changed look as many buildings disappeared over time.
Before the advent of photography, the idea of India in the west was largely made through paintings and sketches, the noted among them being the famous Daniell uncle-son duo, Sir Charles D'Oyly and various native artists who practiced what came to be dubbed as 'Company School of Painting' like Seeta Ram.
Bourne and Shepherd, Felice Beato, Raja Deen Dayal are considered among the pioneers of photography in India and works of these artists are either prized possession of galleries and archives around the world or collector's items.
"The Museum of Art & Photography has an extensive photographic collection that includes roughly over 100 historical photographs by Bourne and Shepherd. The selected images present the wide range of subjects that were captured by Bourne, Shepherd and their studio - whether topographical landscapes, architectural studies, event documentation or posed portraits.
"Another aspect in the selection process was identifying those images with hidden details that would be particularly interesting when magnified, for the enlarged reproductions," she said.
The exhibition comes with a catalogue that was published with its first edition. It carries an original essay by Hugh Ashley Rayner, prolific British author and scholar of early Indian photography, on the life and works of Bourne, she said, adding, 12 prints have been chosen for a special collector's box set.
The exhibition, celebrating ten years of Tasveer, will next travel to Vadodara at Laxmivilas Palace and Jodhpur at Mehrangarh Fort in 2017.
