Raja Deen Dayal is considered to be the greatest of India's photographers. With no formal training and based merely on an interest and a curious eye, Deen Dayal, born into a jeweller's family in Sardana in Uttar Pradesh, 25 km from Meerut, and trained to be an engineer at Thomason Engineering College, Roorkee, soon found his passion for life - photography. Deen Dayal was working as a Draftsman and Head Estimator at Indore, when he came under the patronage of Sir Lepel Griffin of Bengal who authored several books including the 'Rajahs of the Punjab' in 1870 AD. Deen Dayal's photographs of monuments such as Gwalior fort, Khajuraho etc were used in the book 'Famous Monuments of Central India'.
Deen Dayal soon became the official photographer of Viceroy Lord Dufferin and the official photographer to the Duke of Connaught. Having a sharp business acumen, Deen Dayal secured a royal warrant from Queen Victoria in 1887 and then renewed it from King Edward VII in 1900. Having discovered his passion, Deen Dayal resigned from his engineer's job and travelled across India taking pictures of famous monuments, life in India etc. He set up his first studio in Indore in 1874 and covered the visit of the prince of Wales to Hyderabad in 1885.
The sixth Nizam of Hyderabad Mahboob Ali Khan hired him as the royal photographer and gave him the title of Raja which entitled him to a cavalry of 2000, 1000 horses and such. Raja Deen Dayal set up his studio in Secunderabad and employed 50 people including foreigners - two German oil painting artists and an English lady Mrs Kennedy Levick to click photographs of the ladies. His 'Hints to Sitters' is an introduction to the subject of the photograph on how the best photos are captured - when the subject is the happiest, unhurried, kind of clothes to wear- excellent stuff.
His works were displayed across the world and he was twice honored in the London Exhibitions of 1886 and 1891, and in Exhibitions in Chicago, Italy, Spain etc. In 1903 he accompanied the sixth Nizam to the Delhi Durbar of Princes which was led by the Nizam of Hyderabad. Raja Deen Dayal had a huge studio in Mumbai which he called a salon. However his children had no interest in the business and his fortunes dwindled. Deen Dayal died in 1905. 2857 of his pictures have been bought by the National Institute of Arts in Delhi. A stamp was released in his honour in 2006.
That Raja Deen Dayal achieved all this using primitive equipment and with no formal training is a wonder. They say that his photographs capture the spirit of the ages, of India and its daily life. The author Narender Luther writes about how he envisaged a Museum of Photography in his honour which did not take off. It was then that he decided to embark on this wonderful coffee table book which captures the history of photography, of images, Raja Deen Dayal's journey and many many pictures that he took.
Vijay gave this book to me and I suddenly realised that on my table there are book of Raja Ravi Varma, MS Subbulakshmi and Raja Deen Dayal. Such wonderful stuff. I also vaguely remember the Raja Deen Dayal Estate in Secunderabad where Vidyuth and Elahe had a boutique at one time. Wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment