DELHI PHOTO COMPANY

Delhi Photo Company (DPC) was established by Sh. Bhagwati Prasad in 1937. It was the first photo studio located on Janpath in New Delhi. Specialization in studio portraits generated widespread interest and soon received accolades. In 1938 Delhi Photo Company opened it’s second branch in Mussoorie. After Independence, DPC was appointed the Official Portrait Photographers for the Presidents of India. Until late 1980’s DPC was responsible for taking portraits of all the Ministers for Government of India.

PORTRAITS INSPIRED BY FILM NOIR

Delhi Photo Company in 2019 is still going strong with its studio portraits, the black and white portraits takes you back in time and the images produced are truly iconic.

OUR SERVICES

Studio DPC has services to offer for people who can not come to the studio. For photo enthusiasts who wants to learn photography.

MOVIE POSTERS BY AJAY

In the 90’s with the economy opening up, Delhi Photo Company became the hub for portfolio shoots. Many were for the fashion industry, some for Television Serials and some for Movies.

The portfolio was very well received and helped in launching a few newcomers.

With the success of portfolio in Mumbai I was invited to take photos for movie posters, I remember Nitin Manmohan once told me that a filmmaker has 3 Aces before the release of the film – The first is the music, the second is the trailer and the final is the movie’s poster. This sentiment was shared by numerous filmmakers.

The Movie posters I did were mostly shot in the studio with the Portrait style. One of my highlights was meeting another Great portrait photographer Shri Gautam Rajadhyaksha who had called for me after he saw my work, he loved what I was doing and encouraged me to be true to the style of studio portraits.

PUBLICATIONS

Delhi Photo Company has been part of many books and publication like:
• Bharatnatyam by Jayalakshmi Eeshwar • Tiz Hazari Nama 125 years of Tiz Hazari • Lionel Wendt Ceylon
• Rashtrapati Bhavan 360 degree • Project Orchid for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

In 2019 we decided to venture into publishing photo books which were one of its kind.

Hindi… Effortlessly – A humorous take on learning basic Hindi with photographs. It is a series of black-and-white photos, each accompanied by an English word referencing the subject of the photo with its Hindi equivalent in both Roman and Devanagari script.

The Joint Indian Family Album is a very different and more serious exercise, using studio setups with focusing lights to make portraits of artists and figures in the art world in a ‘film-noir’ inspiration. This book is a tribute to my family studio’s past tradition.

HAND-COLOURING

Hand-colouring refers to any method of manually adding colour to a monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Also known as hand painting or overpainting. It remained the easiest and most effective method to produce full-colour photographic images until the mid-20th century when American Kodak introduced Kodachrome colour film.

In spite of the availability of high-quality colour processes & more recently, digital image processing has been used – particularly in advertising – to recreate the appearance and effects of hand-colouring. Hand-coloured photographs (often combined with sepia toning) are still popular for aesthetic reasons.

Delhi Photo Company still continues the tradition of hand colouring.

GALLERY BY DPC

DPC Gallery at Punjab Grill – 78, Janpath, New Delhi 110001 [Map]