Camera Indica

Know about the book -

Camera Indica is written by Christopher Pinney and published by University of Chicago Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0226668657 (ISBN 10) and 9780226668659 (ISBN 13).

Pinney identifies three key moments In Indian portraiture: the use of photography as a quantifiable instrument of measurement under British rule, the role of portraiture in moral instruction, and the current visual style of popular culture and its effects on modes of picturing. Photographic culture thus becomes a mutable realm in which capturing likeness is only part of the project. Today, Indian images are characterized by a distinctive postcolonial photographic practice, which involves sophisticated inventiveness and techniques such as overpainting, collage, composite printing and doubling. Contemporary portraits that showcase these techniques rely as well on elaborate backdrops and props such as motorbikes to construct an endless variety of identities, challenging the prior use of photography as documentation and description.