Aims and objectives
The project will survey, catalogue and digitise the archives (1912–1950) of the Mahatta & Co photographic studio in Kashmir, India. This is a large collection with over a thousand negatives including glass-plate negatives, hand-coloured photographs, transparencies and small format negatives. There are studio portraits, family photographs, pictures of ceremonial events, ethnographic images of Kashmiris at work or surrounded by the tools of their trade, expansive panoramic landscapes and commissioned photographs of British administrators and Indian royalty. The studio's earliest assignments consisted of photographing military personnel, and Mahatta photographers had rare access to the Kashmiri people's militia that they captured in remarkable images. In the early years of independence, the studio photographed Gandhi, Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah in Kashmir. The collection as such is a record of both the political life of Kashmir as well as the more private and familial moments of its inhabitants in the early 20th century.
