Early Bombay Photography

British colonizers and indigenous Indians were both active within just a few years of the medium’s invention.

Long before the introduction of moving pictures, and long before Bollywood, Bombay was the first Indian city where the photographic needs of the public—including more affluent indigenous Indians as well as British—were catered to. Bombay was the commercial heart of the country, and therefore more up to date with new technology and developments. Already by the 1850s, more Indians were practicing this new method in Bombay than anywhere else in the country, perhaps in Asia.

The aim of this publication in researching under-recognized photographers of the time like Narayan Daji, Hurrichund Chintamon, Shivshanker Narayen and Shapoor N. Bhedwar is to contribute new information for a local history that is still very much in formation. Following a roughly chronological trajectory, the volume looks at some of the earliest surviving Bombay photographs, and moves through differing eras to the end of the 19th century, covering architectural studies and landscapes, portraits and ethnographic studies, and the documentation of trade and technological advancements that produced such spectacular pictures.

Newly excavated data will augment the scholarship readily available on this period of photography, and on some of the best-known 19th century photographers active in Bombay: Thomas Biggs, William Henry Pigou, William Johnson, Colin