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| Edited By: Yoshita Rao |Source: DNA |Updated: Aug 20, 2018, 02:38 PM IST
The walls of Mumbai's Hamilton Studios have stood witness to famous personalities like Dr BR Ambedkar, the Tatas, and other greats, who have passed through, getting their passport or life-sized portraits clicked. Some of these still hang proudly in its foyer. Today, these walls are slowly submitting to white ants. Its spacious rooms now look emptier, but the bells that curtain its entrance still retain a certain charm.
Started by Lord Victor Sassoon in 1928 and named after Lady Hamilton. In the 1950s, it was taken over by Ranjit Madhavji, who still stands as Managing Director. However, a long drawn litigation with the National Textile Corporation, since 1976, has left the studio – that once housed a staff of 22 – with just one peon and Ranjit's 60-year-old daughter Ajita, who has been here for 30 years.
The many cameras of the studio have passed through two generations of a family, that has recently started using digital cameras. Ranjit held a strict 'no digital cameras allowed' policy. Continuing his legacy, Ajita still refuses to "refine those digital distorted pictures" and/or print the ones clicked on mobile phones.
A client walked into Hamilton Studios inquiring about a photo clicked in February 1956 and provided a 'negative number'. Ajita quickly hurried into her archives and emerged shortly with the negatives of the picture, which was later printed into a black and white copy of a newly married couple. What is astonishing is that the negative was easily fished out of a corpus of six lakh negatives that Hamilton Studios is renowned for not sharing with clients.
"Even if I'm given me the approximate year and the name under whom the picture was taken, I can look it up," says Ajita. The British Library is now sponsoring all the negatives to be archived online, to avoid deterioration.
For this photographer-by-chance, who initially wanted to pursue her MBA, the photography field didn't interest her as, "there was no money in it". But after years of attending photography courses and learning the tricks of the trade from her father's assistant, Ajita is a natural. "There is no structured school of photography that we follow. It's what the eye sees and what I've picked up from my father, who was the Yousuf Karsh [iconic Armenian photographer of the 20th century] of Bombay."
The studio's backdrop is hand painted by Ajita, who senses the relationships in group photos, decides the clothes to be worn, and make-up to be put on by clients. "We do not take 10 pictures or even Photoshop, and almost always get it right on the first shot," Ajita says, emphatically. But the process of 'first time right' is long-winding, as she takes a day or two to set up the lighting, and takes her own time in the line up to the shot. Retouching of old photos by hand is another technique practiced here, which could take at least six months to complete.
All appointments at Hamilton are now taken prior to the shoot via email. Adapting to the digital age, Ajita uses a Nikon D750 DSLR from all the previous cameras – Nikon D40, Linhof, Rolleicord and the 1926 Kodak, a wooden camera, which would require its bellows to be replaced, but still works.
One 'head and shoulders' picture costs Rs 4,500 here – which in the 1990s' cost Rs 1,200-1,500 – excluding printing costs or processing of prints. "People can splurge in five-star hotels, which they don't think is a waste. But something that will last you a lifetime, rarely anyone wants to invest in it," Ajita laments. But she is thankful to the customers that they still have, who ever so often, drop in just to say hello. "Our clients will never leave us," she asserts.
A new chapter awaits in the opening of Hamilton's art gallery that has been in the pipeline for some time, but Ajita is hopeful that it will open next year. The gallery will showcase Hamilton's photography as well as that of other artists.
Ajita recalls her dad being one of the first few at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh to photograph the Dalai Lama. A minute into the shoot, Ranjit enthusiastically kept clicking pictures when suddenly the Dalai Lama interrupted and asked him to check his camera. "My dad had forgotten to load new film and the Dalai Lama intuitively knew!"
Bourne & Shepherd: Touted as one of the world's oldest photo studios, this 176-year-old establishment was set up in Kolkata and lived through the British Empire. Unfortunately, with the dawn of the digital age it shut shop in April 2016.
Indian art studio: Another one of Mumbai's oldest photo studios, completed a century in December 2017. Along with its hand tinting work the studio also offers customers commercial and e-commerce photography.
Mahatta & co: Started on a houseboat in Srinagar, this Delhi-based studio is also over 100 years old. Struggling to keep up with the digital age, the studio finds destination wedding photography profitable.
