This project is an attempt to write a history of photography in India in a condensed format that can be used as a class text book. It will exoplore the practice and development of photography in India through identifying key photographers, images, styles, technological advances, and other important "moments" in its evolution. There will be a synthesis of secondary sources with primary research consisting of visual analysis of photographs in various collections and interviews with key figures in the industry and practicing photographers.

This project examines an important genre of South Asian photography that is distinct in the history of the medium and that has not yet been adequately studied. While other regions in the world applied paint to the photographic image, none did it with such frequency nor continued as long after the advent of colour photography. This points to another conception of the photographic image, one not based only on the photograph’s connection with “reality”, suggesting a need to rewrite photo history more broadly.

Inspired by an album of 168 cartes-de-visite of courtesans from various North Indian locations, mostly Lucknow, currently in the Royal Ontario Museum collection, this project examines the history of representation of the courtesan, from the dancing girl (nautch) in 18th-century Mughal and Company School painting to the playback singer and female film starlet in the early 20th century. It focuses on the period of the album: 1860s-1880s when the photos were taken and c.1900 when the album was compiled.