On World Photography Day, the State Department of Archaeology and Museums put on display a sample of its glass negatives collection which has been digitised and printed. “We finished digitising this only last week and we have rushed through to put up this show. And from Monday, visitors can pick up mugs and greeting cards printed with images from these digitised photographs,” informed N.R. Visalatchi, Director of Department of Archaeology and Museums.
Can you imagine seeing the brilliant tile work of the Baad Shahi Ashoorkhana without the dark green mesh and the doorway blocking the view? Can you imagine the State Assembly building without the grillwork and the statue of Gandhi? If you want to, all you have to do is step into the State Museum and the black and white photographs will take you back in time. Also on display is the field camera with bellows teamed with a rare K. Yamasaki 250mm Congo lens that was used for photographing many of the archaeology sites. Other relics of a different age are two massive projectors which were used to project the glass negatives. The photographs will be on display till September 1.
“This display of prints has been put up for the first time. There were 5,000 glass negatives. We have digitised 4,800 and about 200-300 were damaged and we could not salvage them,” said Paulus Raveendra, General Manager of VIT-India, which carried out the digitisation work. “The museum has also begun a project called Photo Expressions where students from Class IV to Intermediate can write nano stories or their impressions and they will be given a certificate of merit and participation on September 1,” informed Ms. Visalatchi.
