Aalokchitrapuran by Shahadat Parvez [Hardcover]

During the golden age of Bengali literature, photography as an art form was still in its infancy. In the heyday of the Bengal Renaissance, only a handful of renaissance-minded individuals came forward to present this emerging medium of art in a broader light. Through their meditative focus and sharp intellect, a strong foundation for the practice of photography in Bengal was built. Between 1885 and 1947—a span of six decades—several essays were written on photography by figures such as Amritalal Bandopadhyay, Surendranath Tagore, Ramendrasundar Tribedi, Adishwar Ghatak, Manmathanath Chakravarti, Anandakishore Ghosh, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, Mahimachandra Thakur, Sukumar Ray, Sukumar Mitra, Aryakumar Chowdhury, Parimal Goswami, Satishchandra Bandopadhyay, Charu Bandopadhyay, Narendra Dev, Prasaddas Ray, Anilchandra Mukhopadhyay, Rajkumar Bandopadhyay, Pareshchandra Sengupta, and Golam Kasem Daddy. This is the first initiative in the country to compile these early essays on photography written in Bengali into a single volume. The camera arrived in Bengal in 1840. However, it took nearly another forty years for this magical instrument of artistic creation to become accessible to the general public. From the daguerreotype, calotype, glass plate negatives, and celluloid era to today’s digital photography—this medium now reigns supreme across the world. In contemporary times, photography is considered the most effective and credible form of visual art. Shehadat Parvez, by shedding light on the different phases of this nearly 200-year journey of photography in Bengal, has crafted a visual epic titled *Alokchitrapuran* (The Mythology of Photography).