Fashion gets the speed of fire when it takes the visual route. If people do not see the new trend, how can fashion grow in the society and move to innovation? The best possible way of spreading the word of mouth about fashion is through fashion journalism – of course fashion photography. So, a lot of credit goes to the fashion photographers in our country.
In the times, when everyone carries a digital camera in their mobile handsets – its hard to believe that there was a time when people were literally scared of getting clicked. Thanks to the strong flash light attached to the heavy camera (of old times when it was not handheld) innocent people believed that the camera can actually suck few moments of their life if it shoots them . The camera was a life-reducing machine – that was the word on the street. In a country with that myth, it took some time when people got friendly with the camera.
But do you wonder who was the first known fashion photographer from India?
Looking for success in the field of copywriter, Prabuddha Dasgupta from Kolkata turned out to be the first photographer in India to do a formal photoshoot for a fashion brand.
Prabuddha Dasgupta was a self-taught photographer who grew up in the cultural chaos of post-colonial India. Although he studied to be a historian, he started his career as a copywriter before turning to photography. In 1996, Prabuddha Dasgupta’s controversial collection of portraits and nudes of urban Indian women titled Women (Viking Books) was published, with the intent of reinstating the nude to its rightful place in the Indian cultural discourse.
In the decade that followed, Prabuddha pursued a variety of photographic projects, unapologetically straddling the two worlds of commissioned and artistic work. He brought a bold, individualistic sensibility that very quickly placed him in the ranks of major photographic talent in the country.
He shot the memorable and controversial ad with Milind Soman & Madhu Sapre for TUFF Shoes. Yes, the one with the snake around their bodies.
His work is in the collections of many individuals and institutions, like the Museo Ken Damy, Brescia, Italy, and Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan, Italy. Prabuddha passed away on the 12th of August, 2012. Since, the Estate of Prabuddha Dasgupta has organised a retrospective exhibition of his work at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, in September 2015, and published Prabuddha Dasgupta: 1956 - 2012, a book of selected images from the photographer’s various bodies of work.
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