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: If we do not learn from history, we repeat it: the need for a Historical Photo Archive In 1987, responding to a need expressed by several close photographer friends in Delhi, I started a photo library. The intention was to collect stock pictures from photographers, catalogue them professionally, and market them to advertising agencies, publishing houses, corporate and government clients and the media.

Thus Fotomedia Pvt. Ltd. was born. I fell headlong into the world of photographs. Ignorant about the business but thoroughly motivated, I learnt with every fall. I badgered photographers for better pictures, visited photo libraries in Boston and New York, procured archival storage material from the UK, studied library systems for cataloguing and indexing, and developed a healthy reputation for chasing errant clients for payment through the services of a friendly lawyer.

Within a couple of years I realised that there was a fairly consistent demand for historical material, not only within India but also from publishers in the US, UK, Europe, and Japan. In addition, there were lucrative inquiries for pictures on Indian art objects, manuscripts, maps, lithographs and royal collections. Unfortunately, there was hardly any existing photo stock of historical material, or of museum collections.

The only consolidated photo archive on Indian history was the India Office Library, part of the renowned British Museum in London. Desperate to fulfill an obvious lacuna in my photo library, I visited the National Museum, Archeological Survey of India, and the National Archives in New Delhi. Fotomedia had, by then, also done a project for the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. Nobody had accessible photo collections.

After agonisingly expensive phone-calls and snail-mail to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Smithsonian in Washington, I collected a few beautifully shot pictures of Indian artifacts for a client, at a prohibitive price of 80 pounds, with strict conditions for usage. So I decided to try and utilise our own museums to promote photographs of Indian collections worldwide, and earn a similar income for them. However, the tangle of red-tape caught me unawares. I had to write to the DG who would view my private company credentials with suspicion, wait weeks for my request to be processed while he travelled, and often ended up repeating the whole process because he had been transferred to another institution.