Photographer

See also, Artist.

Photographers in India include John Edward Saché (studios in towns across northern India); G.K. Vale, Bangalore; R.B. Holmes of Peshawar; D.J. Divechia of Rawalpindi; Guerra & Sons, Mhow, Central India; Herzog and Higgins of Mhow, Raja Deen Dayal etc

Photographer William D. Holmes was the brother in law of John Edward Sache, one of the most prominent 19th century European photographers in India. Holmes joined Sache in Lucknow in 1877 and founded a studio in his own name in 1889.

FIBIS resources

• Wendy Pratt, "Life with Tea in India: the diaries of Samuel Cleland Davidson" FIBIS Journal No 24 (Autumn 2010), pages 36-46. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals. Samuel Cleland Davidson was a tea planter who was a keen amateur photographer. An example of his work is "On parade"

Related articles

• Clifton & Co, Photographers (Bombay)
• Postcard Publishers = Galleries of early postcards of India.
• Photographic postcards of celebrated photographer Fred Bremner

Recommended Reading

• In Pursuit of the Past by FIBIS member Christopher Penn about Albert Thomas Watson Penn, one of the pioneering photographers of South India, who established his business at Ootacamund. Read the article "In pursuit of the past" The Hindu Metro Plus Coimbatore November 29, 2004, and the article Chasing the photographer, also from The Hindu (Chennai Metro Plus 4 May 2009). (This book has been favourably reviewed in FIBIS Journal no 21)

The Nicholas Brothers and A. T. W. Penn: Photographers of South India 1855 – 1885 by Christopher Penn (2014). Review by Richard Morgan – page 51 FIBIS Journal Number 33 (Spring 2015). the Nicholas Brothers were John and James Perratt Nicholas. A further review from "British photographic history" also mentions Dr Alexander Hunter, Linnaeus Tripe, John Parting, Edmund David Lyon, Willoughby Wallace Hooper and Samuel Bourne, in the Madras region.

• Early Photographs of Ladakh, edited with an introduction by Hugh Rayner, published 2013. This book has been reviewed by Robert Charnock in FIBIS Journal Number 30 (Autumn 2013), page 46

External Links

General

• Indian Raj British Indian Photography 1845-1947 (Harappa.com)
• The Tibet Album -British Photography in Central Tibet 1920-1950 including Photographers. This site provides access to the photograph collections of two British museums - the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) and the British Museum (London).

Photographs

• Search the British Library’s Online Gallery
• History of Pakistan’s photostream on Flickr

Articles

• Pioneers of Indian Photography by John Falconer
• Photography in Colonial and Post Colonial India (pdf) by Megan Joyce
• Lens on the Great Game - Earliest commercial photographers in the North-West Frontier by Malavika Karlekar July 8 , 2012 The Telegraph, Calcutta
• Burke and Norfolk: Photographs from the War in Afghanistan by John Burke and Simon Norfolk: Conversation with Simon Norfolk. John Burke (1843?-1900) was the first ever photographer to make pictures in Afghanistan. simonnorfolk.com
• "Early British Colonial Travellers Show Earliest Images of India" by Ciaran Thapar, 5 May 2016. British Journal of Photography website, category Exhibitions. The work of Linnaeus Tripe, Dr John Murray and Samuel Bourne. Photographs from the Exhibition

Individuals

• Luminous Lint website A collaborative website sharing information on photography and photographers worldwide. For India related articles chose Connections from drop down box and add search term India in box immediately below.
• Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road. An exhibition at the J Paul Getty Museum. Felice Beato was in India 1858-60, and Burma 1887-1905.
  • Conservation of a Photographic Album from Burma. British Library Collection Care blog.
• Samuel Bourne. Wikipedia Photographs in Cambridge. Photograph by Samuel Bourne - Lake, Nynee Tal, 1860 flickr.com.

Bourne & Shepherd : Figures In Time An exhibition sourced from the photographic collection of MAP (Museum of Art & Photography, Bangalore) tasveerarts.com. Photographs from the exhibition 7 May 2016 bbc.com. Article by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri May 31, 2016. Scroll.in. "The Oldest Functional Photo Studio In the World Shuts Down In Kolkata After 176 Years" by Rakhi Bose Jun 17, 2016. scoopwhoop.com.

• Fred Bremner. Fred Bremner’s Indian Years 1882-1923 by Brij Bhushan Sharma. old.harappa.com. Includes links to a number of essays. There is no link for Essay 1, but it is available in an archived form. Includes quotes from his autobiography My Forty Years in India, published 1940, (now available in a reprint edition) The website includes a series of 9 Indian soldier images from his pictorial album Types of the British Indian Army 1895, which contained c 60 images.

Fred Bremner luminous-lint.com. Includes commercial details.

Fred Bremner also published a number of books in respect of British Army regiments which included a short history but mainly consisted of photographs. Three of these are available at the British Library, and others perhaps may be available at Regimental Museums or Archives, but otherwise appear to be rare.

• 2nd Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders} Peshawar India 1907. Photographs and publication by F Bremner
• The 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment, illustrated. With brief historical account of the services of the Regiment, etc. Quetta : Fred Bremner, 1902. British Library reference UIN: BLL01004039706
• The 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment illustrated. With brief historical account of the services of the Regiment. Ferozepore ... 1906. Lahore : Fred. Bremner, [1906]. British Library UIN: BLL01001096457
• 2nd Battalion The Gordon Highlanders Peshawar India 1907 Lahore: Bremner 1907
• 2nd Battalion Princess Victoria’s Royal Irish Fusiliers Ferozepore India 1908. Lahore: Bremner 1908
• The 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment ... With brief historical account of the services of the regiment. Quetta : Fred Bremner, 1899. British Library UIN: BLL01004050083
• South Lancashire Regiment. 1st Battalion Prince of Wales’s Volunteers Lahore 1910. Lahore: Bremner 1910.
• 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Quetta Baluchistan 1903. Lahore: F Bremner 1907
• West Yorkshire Regiment. 1st Battalion Prince of Wales Own. Mian –Mir and Dalhousie, Punjab 1906. Lahore F Bremner 1906 and 1st Battalion Prince of Wales Own. Rawalpindi 1910. Lahore: F Bremner 1910
• 1st Battalion Duke of Edinburgh’s Wiltshire Regiment, Quetta Baluchistan 1899. Quetta: F Bremner 1899
• 1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, Quetta Baluchistan 1907. Lahore: Bremner 1907.

• John Burke Some biographical details by F S Aijazuddin. About Photography in Afghanistan John Burke and other early photographers in Afghanistan. Afghan Box Camera Project. Details of some photographs held at the Brown University Library, Providence R I, USA, taken in Afghanistan in 1878. Retrieved 18 October 2014
• Pioneer photographer Deen Dayal provides a portrait of India by Haroon Siddiqui April 18 2013 thestar.com Dayal (1844-1905) was a Hindu whose chief patron was the Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad , one of the richest men in the world, the ruler of the largest of India’s 565 princely states.
  • Rare 19th Century Pictures of India Examples of photographs by Raja Deendayal (1844-1905) on BBC news website.
• Captain R. B. Hill. Probably Richard Barton Hill 1835-1873, who joined the Bengal Army in 1853. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York collection of photographs 1850s
• John McCosh or MacCosh 1805-1885 Edinphoto.org.
  • There is an article "The Laboratory of Mankind: John McCosh and the Beginning of Photography in British India" by Ray McKenzie, in History of Photography, Volume 11, No. 2, April-June 1987, pages 109-118. This quarterly journal is available at the British Library.
  • Surgeon John McCosh, Bengal Medical Establishment, 1852 (c) nam.ac.uk
• "The Sachés: a family of photographers working in India during the 19th century" by Stéphanie Roy Bharath PhotoResearcher ESHPh European Society for the History of Photography No 13, 2010 , page 4 (now archived). John Edward Saché (1824-1882), born in Prussia, arrived in Calcutta in late 1864, after working in the USA. John Edward Sache 1865-1882 harappa.com
• Linnaeus Tripe Wikipedia. Linnaeus Tripe, a biography by the V&A Museum, now an archived webpage (retrieved 29 May 2014).
• John Paul White. John Claude White - career Kings’ College London.

Sikhim & Bhutan, twenty-one years on the North-East Frontier, 1887-1908 by John Claude White. 1909 Archive.org

• Wiele & Klein, Madras and Ootacamund
  • Wiele & Klein Studio Advertisement A Trade advertisement for the Madras and Ootacamund studio of Wiele & Klein, "Artists, Photographers and Photo Engravers" britishphotohistory.ning.com
  • "The German Photographers of Madras" by Gabrielle Landwehr Part 1 , Part 2 (scroll down) Madras Musings Volume XVIII No. 14, November 1-15, 2008 and No. 15, November 16-30, 2008
  • Madras on glass 9 July 2003 The Hindu
• The Williamson Photographic Collection is housed in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge Yale (USA). Frederick Williamson was a British Political Officer stationed in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet in the 1930s who was an ardent photographer. Williamson's 16mm films from the 1930s may be viewed online.

Historical books online

• "Photographic Notes" Appendix A, page 259 Lights & Shades of Hill Life in the Afghan and Hindu Highlands of the Punjab, a Contrast by F St J Gore 1895 Archive.org. With photographs by the author.
• The Last Empire : photography in British India, 1855-1911. Texts by Ainslie Thomas Embree and Clark Worswick. 1976 Archive.org Lending Library. "Accompanies an exhibition organized by the Asia House Gallery of the Asia Society [London?] for the summer of 1976."