A RETURN To Film

Though India’s legacy camera shops offer used vintage cameras (usually in questionable condition), the future of India’s long tryst with film doesn’t seem to lie in its past progenitors. Rather, several younger, curious photographers have kept aside their DSLRs for a moment and have picked up the lost art of film photography and processing, with a keen eye for aesthetics, technique, global trends, and a certain sense of blessed escapism

- Sharan Sanil

India’s rich tradition of visual expression entered a new era with the advent of cameras in the 19th century. And while they were initially exclusive to colonial visitors and court photographers, in the 1930s, photography, by and large, witnessed a significant surge at the hands of this country’s film camera enthusiasts.

The interest in this visual medium was fuelled further by pioneering development studios and the rise of pan-Indian photojournalism. You can feel the echoes of this century-old trend in India’s many ‘camera gullies'. Whether in Delhi’s Kucha Chaudhary Market, Kolkata’s Esplanade or Mumbai’s own camera market in Fort, some stores have stubbornly stayed open through multiple recessions and the pandemic. Many have given up film processing in lieu of modern camera trends; a fact made clearer by the symptomatic abundance of ring lights, selfie sticks and smartphone mounts on display.

But away from these old bylanes, there’s a thriving community of younger men and women leading something of a quiet revival in the world of film photography; with the form growing more accessible with each passing day. This passionate community of young individuals is quietly revitalizing the old art of film photography, ushering in a renaissance of the medium far away from where it originally thrived — the digital space, with a volley of pages, hashtags and communities engaging in the artform on Instagram and other social media platforms.