Photo Op

Time was when Connaught Place was dotted with well known photo studios. People would come all the way from Kalkaji in south Delhi to get a 8216;good8217; photo taken at Rangoon or Shimla...

From next month, one of the city8217;s oldest studios, the Delhi Photo Company, will start functioning as a gallery for photo exhibitions

Time was when Connaught Place was dotted with well known photo studios. People would come all the way from Kalkaji in south Delhi to get a 8216;good8217; photo taken at Rangoon or Shimla photo studio and get the roll they shot on during their weekend trip to Agra processed at Mahatta8217;s. Today, with digital cameras around, getting a family photo taken by a professional photographer is a thing of the past. 8220;So what was once Rangoon studio is now Pizza Hut and Shimla studio has turned into Barista,8221; smiles photographer Ajay Shanker of the Delhi Photo Company, one of the oldest studios in the city.

When an automobile major approached Delhi Photo Company to buy the outlet for a car showroom, the Shankers refused to part with their shop. The offer was tempting, but they had a different plan8212;that of converting 2,000 square feet of their shop into a gallery exclusively for photo exhibitions. The plan also included a cafeacute; with kitchen, a backyard-turned-into a garden for evening get-togethers, and a place where photographers 8212;both veterans and amateurs8212; could meet and exchange ideas.

Standing behind the counter in the shop, Ajay Shanker hardly has the airs of a Bollywood photographer. Perhaps those who come here to buy a camera film are not even aware that from Tango Charlie to Matrubhoomi to Dil Maange More to Thanks Maa a film that was sent as an entry to the Cannes film festival this year, Shanker has shot the publicity material for several Hindi films in the last six years.

During the last two years he has been painstakingly restoring the studio and turning it into a gallery. The result is that from old Gothic pillars to wooden staircases have been restored and antique cameras, photographs of erstwhile maharajas and nawabs can be spotted in the gallery along with magazines and brochures on photography. As a part of the experiment, Shanker has also organised an exhibition by students of the College of Art. However, the gallery will formally open in October.

8220;Photography is seen more as a business than an art form these days. There are no galleries that exclusively display photographs and give a platform to both professionals and students of photography. I want this gallery to be sans a commercial tag and definitely not a meeting place for Page 3 celebrities,8221; says Shanker, adding that at least once a month he wants to screen documentaries and hold book-reading sessions at the gallery.

Opening the city8217;s first full-fledged photography gallery is certainly an ambitious project and Shanker has spent nearly

Rs 15 lakh in making his dream come true.

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But for Shanker, no obstacle is big enough to come between him and his dream. His father, Vijay Shanker, was the first Indian photographer to be trained in Germany and their company was also the first official photographer of the President of India. With such family history to fall back upon, Shanker is confident his gallery has a bright future.