The Society’s non-European members included Dr Narayan Daji, one of the earliest known Indian photographers who Hapgood describes as the “undersung brother of Dr Bhau Daji”.  Dr Bhau Daji, whose name adorns a museum in the Byculla area, was also a member of the Photographic Society. Both brothers were doctors who had studied from Bombay’s Grant Medical College.

“Photography was extremely expensive but it also required extensive knowledge of chemistry and thus many of the earliest photographers were also doctors educated at Grant Medical College,” said Hapgood.

Another photographer Hapgood finds most striking is Hurrichund Chintamon, a commercially successful portraitist who won first prizes for his work twice at the Elphinstone Institution, where he learnt photography in the 1850s. He then set up his own photo studio. His portraits were exhibited not just in Bombay but also at the Paris International Exposition of 1867.

Hurrichund Chintamon
Self-Portrait, 1860
Albumen silver print, 231 x 194 mm
South and Southeast Asian Collections, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.