Last weekend I visited INDIA PHOTO ARCHIVE FOUNDATION and it was a wonderful opportunity to know more about old technologies around Photography and the way one of the great Indian Photographers works. It was a very interactive meet with Aditya Arya, who is one of the famous Indian Photographers and popularly known for his work in 'India Photo Archive Foundation'.
Before I start sharing about the experience, just check out the video below -
(All photographs used in this Photo Journey are picked form different websites or Aditya's Facebook Profile. So none of these are clicked by me)
After reaching Aditya's place, we spent some time around his Camera Collection and the place where he has kept archives. INDIA PHOTO ARCHIVE FOUNDATION IS REGISTERED AS PUBLIC CHARITABLE TRUST, a Trust for Creation of awareness of contemporary and historical photographs, creation of archives, and highlighting the historical value of photographic archives and collections and to encourage the dissemination, access and use of such archives for academic, institutional and cultural purposes.
Aditya has worked on various books and I also looked at two of his books. One was about Nagaland, a place he has visited many times to understand the place and people. One of his book 'HISTORY IN THE MAKING' was launched at NCPA, in presence of Bollywood Actor Anupam Kher.
Aditya Arya planned some of the exhibitions to showcase photographs clicked by the legendary photographer Kulwant Roy. Roy’s collection of candid moments of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and other stalwarts of early 20th century India, are very well preserved by Mr Arya. Roy's collection was inherited by his nephew Aditya Arya, who himself is a professional photographer.
More work by Aditya Arya can be checked at - http://www.adityaarya.com/ and to know more about him, check out http://www.adityaarya.com/#/about/bio-info-page
The Aditya Arya Archive (http://www.adityaaryaarchive.com/) is based on the almost forgotten photographs of the important early Independence movement photographer Kulwant Roy (1914-1984). Founded by his nephew, a professional photographer, the archive is actively pursuing the restoration of other collections on the verge of being lost to history. Twenty five years after the passing of his uncle, Kulwant Roy, when photographer Aditya Arya opened the boxes that had been bequeathed to him, he was astounded. He was looking at a treasurehouse of images of pre- and post-independent India. Photographs systematically organised and annotated, negatives carefully packed together, notes painstaking scribbled at the back of fading photographs.
A lifetime of work of photojournalist, Kulwant Roy. And so it was then that Aditya Arya’s journey of archiving began. Drawing from a collection of thousands of old prints and cracked negatives, the initial recovery has led to an exhibition of selected works in Delhi, the generation of worldwide interest in Roy’s work, and the establishment of the Aditya Arya Archive.
The team at the Archive is led by Aditya Arya, and draws upon the expertise of established archivists, historians, researchers, restorers, designers, writers and filmmakers.
Words can never define the amount of efforts, which has gone on this whole project. I was fortunate to visit the place and spend some time with Aditya Arya to know about all this. Aditya has also a huge collection of old cameras of different types. He showed some of the FIRST cameras with some of the specific technologies. E.g.- He showed me first camera with concept of APERTURE. It was huge camera which used to come with rings of different sizes. So whatever aperture is required, photographer needed to change the ring before each shot. Similarly I saw FIRST camera with SHUTTER, which had shutter of thick cloth.
It was amazing to see wooden 3D viewers. I couldn't click photographs of these wonderful collection-pieces. It was hard to imagine the quality of 3D photographs in 1910 and innovative ways of viewing 3D photographs.
After some Tea in the middle of this marvelous collection, we moved towards Digital workspace of Mr. Aditya Arya. Digital Space was even more impressive for me. iMACs with various Hard-Drives and Drobo Boxes for handling hundreds of terabytes. Mr. Arya plays with Lacs of photographs at any point of time. His digital workflows were really exceptional and he is very well equipped to handle this efficiently. Everything was very well planned and organized.
During this meet, we discussed about various things around Analog & Digital photography. He shared various things about his career and his style of working. Aditya is very detail-oriented Photographer who believes in attaining perfection with his camera & negligible post-processing. During some chit-chat about Lightroom, I got a chance to look into his Raw photographs shot with Mamiya Leaf and all of them were perfect and no retouching was required. During the conversation he showed me his store which was adjacent to his studio and it was full of equipments which we usually need for electrical, house-keeping, or construction work. He believes in doing things himself and being independent.
After this, we went for dinner at DLF City Club and I got some good suggestions from Aditya about being more focussed about Photography. Hope to catch up with him again in near future, as people like him are good inspirations in life !
Aditya Arya planned some of the exhibitions to showcase photographs clicked by the legendary photographer Kulwant Roy. Roy’s collection of candid moments of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and other stalwarts of early 20th century India, are very well preserved by Mr Arya. Roy's collection was inherited by his nephew Aditya Arya, who himself is a professional photographer.
More work by Aditya Arya can be checked at - http://www.adityaarya.com/ and to know more about him, check out http://www.adityaarya.com/#/about/bio-info-page
The Aditya Arya Archive (http://www.adityaaryaarchive.com/) is based on the almost forgotten photographs of the important early Independence movement photographer Kulwant Roy (1914-1984). Founded by his nephew, a professional photographer, the archive is actively pursuing the restoration of other collections on the verge of being lost to history. Twenty five years after the passing of his uncle, Kulwant Roy, when photographer Aditya Arya opened the boxes that had been bequeathed to him, he was astounded. He was looking at a treasurehouse of images of pre- and post-independent India. Photographs systematically organised and annotated, negatives carefully packed together, notes painstaking scribbled at the back of fading photographs.
A lifetime of work of photojournalist, Kulwant Roy. And so it was then that Aditya Arya’s journey of archiving began. Drawing from a collection of thousands of old prints and cracked negatives, the initial recovery has led to an exhibition of selected works in Delhi, the generation of worldwide interest in Roy’s work, and the establishment of the Aditya Arya Archive.
The team at the Archive is led by Aditya Arya, and draws upon the expertise of established archivists, historians, researchers, restorers, designers, writers and filmmakers.
Words can never define the amount of efforts, which has gone on this whole project. I was fortunate to visit the place and spend some time with Aditya Arya to know about all this. Aditya has also a huge collection of old cameras of different types. He showed some of the FIRST cameras with some of the specific technologies. E.g.- He showed me first camera with concept of APERTURE. It was huge camera which used to come with rings of different sizes. So whatever aperture is required, photographer needed to change the ring before each shot. Similarly I saw FIRST camera with SHUTTER, which had shutter of thick cloth.
It was amazing to see wooden 3D viewers. I couldn't click photographs of these wonderful collection-pieces. It was hard to imagine the quality of 3D photographs in 1910 and innovative ways of viewing 3D photographs.
After some Tea in the middle of this marvelous collection, we moved towards Digital workspace of Mr. Aditya Arya. Digital Space was even more impressive for me. iMACs with various Hard-Drives and Drobo Boxes for handling hundreds of terabytes. Mr. Arya plays with Lacs of photographs at any point of time. His digital workflows were really exceptional and he is very well equipped to handle this efficiently. Everything was very well planned and organized.
During this meet, we discussed about various things around Analog & Digital photography. He shared various things about his career and his style of working. Aditya is very detail-oriented Photographer who believes in attaining perfection with his camera & negligible post-processing. During some chit-chat about Lightroom, I got a chance to look into his Raw photographs shot with Mamiya Leaf and all of them were perfect and no retouching was required. During the conversation he showed me his store which was adjacent to his studio and it was full of equipments which we usually need for electrical, house-keeping, or construction work. He believes in doing things himself and being independent.
After this, we went for dinner at DLF City Club and I got some good suggestions from Aditya about being more focussed about Photography. Hope to catch up with him again in near future, as people like him are good inspirations in life !
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