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PremiumOld negatives. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint
Kamla Nagar in north Delhi, the University of Delhi’s one-stop destination for locally published books, goodies and the occasional Keventer’s milkshake, has never been closer to being “K-Nags"—a tag lovingly bestowed upon it by generations of students—as today. The book stores on its main Bungalow Road are gone; instead, it now has the favoured children of globalization: the ubiquitous Golden Arches, coffee conglomerates, and row after mannequined row of apparel stores.
Somewhere, on the precipice of old and new, in one of the middle lanes which still houses a Gay Prince Emporium (“for Ladies suits and nightwear") and the pure Chinjabi-serving A-Won restaurant, packaging vanity since 1957, is Studio Prem and Color Lab.
When it started out, the studio’s main clientele consisted of girls from university hostels, often for matrimonial photos, says Prem Sabharwal, the oldest of the studio’s three sibling-directors, whose father, the late Sohan Singh Sabharwal, set it up. “It was then, and continues to be, driven by word-of-mouth publicity. These girls would go back and bring 10 of their friends from their hostels. That’s how we became famous," he says.
Quite early on, the men behind Studio Prem, the three Sabharwal brothers, realized something Photoshop is being credited with decades later: Let people look good. Studio Prem was fixing facial warts and pimples much before Adobe Photoshop was probably even a thought. “We look at three aspects: make-up; light and shadow, and the final correction, which happen after the photo is taken," says Prem.
Make-up is kept “simple-sober", says Suman, one of the make-up girls at the studio; the make-up room along with the studio is on the first floor. Dark circles are concealed, eyes sharply lined, and lips glossed. The real action begins in the studio. “I usually spend 4-5 minutes building a rapport with the client, and making them feel comfortable and confident," says Umesh, Prem’s younger brother, who is also a photographer.
Next comes the mood. Using light and shadow, and with some assistance from your hair (“an important character"), Umesh guarantees each person can be portrayed in three or four different ways: bold/strong, soft/innocent, and “dryness", which is Studio-Prem-speak for a Mona Lisa-style ambiguity. “To capture someone’s bold side, the camera takes a low angle. The innocent look needs a lot of light-and-shadow play, sometimes creating a halo around the head during the shoot, which is further enhanced during the photo-editing process using features like soft focus," says Umesh.
These strategies—premised on changing values and technology—have evolved over time, and “the only way to move ahead is changing with the times", says Umesh. In the days of black and white (when editing happened by correcting negatives by hand), the matrimonial photos used to be about portraying a simple girl, “devi jaisi, ghar ko mandir banaye (goddess-like, who would make the home a temple)". Next was the era of colour, when Umesh decided to insert a tiny dose of “glamour", as he calls it, which meant a brighter shade of lipstick, or Western clothes; with every decade, the glamour quotient was upped a little. “After the age of devi-like girls, people wanted girls who would adjust in the household; now we’re living in the times of families that want girls to fit into today’s modern society," says Umesh. He points to one particular photo, a close-up of a girl resting her chin on crossed arms, like a Yash Raj Films heroine.
“Between 1981 and 1993, we used to get almost 100 matrimonial shoots a day; business was at an all-time high. But then I realized that things were changing and soon there might not be much work in matrimonial photography. That is when we decided to enter wedding photography in a big way. People would always spend on weddings," says Umesh.
The studio now has a special unit dedicated to weddings. A slick 4-minute film captures a four-day ceremony in Kashmir, with shots of the Dal Lake, the venue, and the bride’s shimmering anarkali dress in the foreground. Another trend they’re tapping into is pregnancy photography—to-be mothers in various stages of their pregnancy.
Over the years, they have also built up a fairly diverse clientele; and the list of people who want to look good includes not just glowing mothers-to-be and blushing brides but also politicians like N.D. Tiwari and A. Raja.
Politicians who have been photographed at the studio include Jaipal Reddy, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Sachin Pilot and Kiran Walia. “We also had Abhijit, Pranab Mukherjee’s son, who won the election with our campaign photo," says Umesh proudly, as he flips through a scrapbook signed by these big names, with photos pasted alongside.
With success comes criticism, and the list of Studio Prem’s critics isn’t short. A Dusu candidate’s campaign photos in the early 2000s created quite a stir in the press; Ragini Malik had gone from pleasantly pretty to gorgeous diva, and the media didn’t take it lying down. One newspaper even did a photo shoot of her with their staff photographer and printed it alongside the Studio Prem version. As we speak, a man walks in screaming because a photo of an ancestor which he’d given to be corrected, has been corrected beyond recognition.
Unfazed, Umesh sticks to his stance: “You want the original? I say there is nothing you will like in the original form. Even wheat is turned into roti."
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The Indian Art Studio in Mumbai is a 95-year-old establishment which focuses mainly on “people photography", according to Rajesh Chaddha, one of its three partners. “The idea is that our pictures should be preserved for years to come," he says. Indian Art Studio has shot illustrious names like Arun Nayar, Kumar Mangalam Birla and the late maharaja Mahendra Singh of Morbi, Rajkot (whom Chaddha’s grandfather shot). Incidentally, Chaddha shot the maharaja’s grandson, Vishal Sippy, at his wedding, which he covered.
GK Vale in Bangalore is immensely proud of its age; the website describes 23 May 1910 (the day it was founded) as a history-defining moment. A century on, GK Vale is an empire of sorts, with 17 branches in Bangalore, Mangalore and Mysore. Its speciality is restoration, and big life events like weddings.
shreya.r@livemint.com
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