Women Photographers and the Business of Photography in Postcolonial India

This paper seeks to look at the modern conditions and circumstances that led to the emergence of professional women photographers in Delhi (the capital of India) and its adjoining small towns in post-colonial India. What kind of visual history was produced when women photographers who were running the low brow middle-class studios during 1950s, 60s and1970s started catering to the demands of their modern clientele? In post-Independence commercial studios, women of the families initially started as cashiers, then were trained as studio assistants by their husband photographers and soon got promoted from amateur to professional photographers. Within couple of years of technical training, they were running photography studios on their own. These were also the ‘modern times’ when Kodak in India feminized their business and had women customers as their target. Because of the post-1950s economic embargoes, cameras were still expensive for middle-class families, and occasional visits to photographic studios during festivals became a modern ritual and affordable option to create family albums that brought visibility to modern family structures and values.

By looking at the leftover archives of these past small studios, this paper will attempt to critically analyze the post-colonial modern conditions that led to the emergence of few women photographers and how their work and labour as assistant photographers within commercial studios had an influential effect on the photographic field’s gender demography. It will also study how women photographers’ interventions as the producers of images were framing the imagery of family photography (and different genres) within studios and in their domestic albums. Lastly, it will try to address the politics of invisibility by looking at why the history of middle-class women photographers remains largely a ‘lost-history’ in India despite their presence in the dark rooms and as camera assistants in the studios.