Feature: One of world's oldest, most revered photo studios downs shutters in India

Jayant Gandhi shares the same surname with that of India's national father, Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who preached non-violence and peace.

But Jayant, unlike the peace-loving icon, is a sad, angry man now. His photography studio called Bourne & Shepherd, which is one of the oldest in the world, had to be shut down.

The studio, located in the heart of this Indian's eastern metropolis, actually dates back to 1840 although two British photographers shifted it to Calcutta as it was known then way back in 1867.

"Business has been slumping for the last few years. Plus there were legal issues with the Life Insurance Corporation which demanded a huge amount of rent with arrears, saying it was located in a commercial area," said a dejected Gandhi.

"We could not afford such an amount and decided to close the studio down due to a lack of business. I feel frustrated, but what is the use in expressing it publicly? Will it help?"Gandhi quizzed, but his questions being purely rhetorical.

In 1964, Gandhi and his maternal uncle K. S. Ajmera took over one of the oldest photography studios located on the S. N. Banerjee Road and the premises remained there until it was shut down a fortnight ago.

"We removed our records and equipment including cameras and took them to my cousin Ajmera's home in Rajasthan, western India,"said Gandhi.

The two British photographers Charles Shepherd along with Arthur Robertson in 1862 first set up the studio in Agra in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh and called it "Shepherd & Robertson."

Another British photographer, Samuel Bourne, came to India in 1863, and had set up a partnership with an established Calcutta-based (now Kolkata) British photographer, William Howard, and established a new studio called"Howard & Bourne"at Shimla. But Howard already had a studio in the then Calcutta since 1840, 176 years ago.

Charles Shepherd moved to Shimla after Robertson left and returned to England. Shepherd joined Bourne and formed"Howard, Bourne & Shepherd,"with the business remaining as it was, until its doors closed recently.

Shepherd was a legendary photographer and led expeditions to the Himalayas and the Kashmir Valley. He would travel with a retinue of 40 Indian porters who would carry his cameras, darkroom tent and chests of chemicals and glass plates. He became one of India's greatest photographers of that era.

Through the 1860s, Bourne's work was exhibited at public exhibitions in Europe and was also part of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867. He also wrote several dispatches for The British Journal of Photography between 1863 and 1870.

The company also became a devoted provider of photographs of Indian landscapes to the common visitors to the country and also to aficionados and customers living in Britain. They not only just survived but thrived in an era of fierce competition between commercial photographers.

In 1866, Howard too quit and went back to England and they renamed the studio"Bourne & Shepherd".

Between 1870 and 1911, the firm sent photographers to Sri Lanka and Myanmar as they're known now, as well as Nepal and Singapore, and had also become art publishers, with titles like "Photographs of Architecture of Gujarat and Rajputana" (1904-5). At that time the firm trained and began employing Indian photographers as well.

In 1911, after the British shifted the capital to Delhi as it was known then, they were the official photographers of the"Delhi Durbar"(Delhi Court) held to commemorate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India, where they were given the title"Kaiser-e-Hind"which they used as part of their official letterhead.

During the World Wars the studio thrived on the contracts for photographing Indian, British and American defense services personnel.

"We kept doing work for the Indian Army even after independence in 1947. Senior army officers would visit our studio for portraits along with their families," said Gandhi.

"India's first Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw and the hero of the Bangladesh War of 1971 GOC-in-C Eastern Command Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora were frequent visitors to our studio. We developed and we printed several photographs of the Pakistan Army General A. K. A. Niazi's surrender to Aurora in Dhaka,"recalled Gandhi.

Gandhi also recalled that the internationally famous film director, the late Satyajit Ray and his son, Sandip Ray, who also won several international awards in film festivals too, would visit to get the still photographs of their productions developed at"Bourne & Shepherd." Another film maker with international acclaim, 94-year-old Mrinal Sen, also got his work done at the studio.

The night of Feb. 6, 1991 was a black day not only for "Bourne & Shepherd" but also the entire photographic world, as a fire broke out in the archives. All the photographs dating back to the 19th century were destroyed.

"The glass plates containing age-old photographs which we had meticulously archived were destroyed along with the negatives. The studio below was not affected by the fire, but our collections of India's history as well as photographs of historical events in Calcutta were burnt in a single night,"he said.

Eighty-year-old photographer Sunil Dutt concurred"I wept the day the studio burned. I used to get my photos done there. They had an archive which was one of the oldest and best in the world. Even senior photographers from all over the world would come down to Calcutta to visit them and seek their help."

"Even several celebrated historians of India kept visiting 'Bourne & Shepherd'. They not only had a historical archive but kept alive the tradition of photography. International magazines of repute like National Geographic and Time Magazine would seek photos from their archives and repeatedly printed them."

"They were the first to send photographers to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to photograph the tribes including cannibals like the Jarwas 60 years ago, at great risk to the photographers,"said Dutt who spent 52 years as a professional photographer.

Historians of Kolkata are reminded that"Bourne & Shepherd"were photographers of traditional, rich and famous families of the then Calcutta too. The princely family of Rabindranath Tagore, Asia's first Nobel Laureate, would often host them at family functions, including the Tagore family weddings, at which his grandfather Prince Dwarakanath Tagore would also entertain other notable British guests.

At present some of the photographs of"Bourne & Shepherd"adorn the galleries of the world's largest museums including the Smithsonian Institution in the United States, the National Gallery of Portraits in London and the Cambridge University library in Britain.

"Now people can use digital cameras and if need be erase a photograph if they don't like it. There is no longer any tension or anxiety about how a negative would develop after a photo has been shot,"Gandhi said.

"Moreover, with smart phones one can take a photo and send it using e-mail or an online app. A young man can take a photo of his girlfriend and send it to his parents for approval. So what is the need of visiting a studio?"lamented Gandhi. Endit