Sarojini Naidu, A Muslim Elite, Was Photographed By Annapurna Dutta, One Of The First Women Photographers

One of the earliest professional female photographers in a period when photography was predominantly a male-dominated field was Annapurna Dutta, who was born in undivided Bengal in 1894. She is renowned for her images of famous people like Sarojini Naidu as well as photographs of families in their homes. Although he was a lawyer by trade, her husband, Upendranath Dutta, was also an amateur photographer.

Dutta first gained notoriety as a photographer in the 1920s, and most of her best work was created in the 1930s and 1940s. Dutta did not work out of a studio; instead, she visited wealthy Indian households for commissioned pictures and developed and printed the photos herself in her home studio. At the time, it was uncommon for women to work outside the home. In her photos, people are seen in their houses with their families and goods, typically dressed in traditional clothes.

Hassan Suhrawardy, a politician and the former premier of Bengal, as well as the poet Jasimuddin and the musician Abbas Uddin Ahmed, were among the Muslim elite that Dutta frequently visited and took pictures of. Interestingly, the Muslim women in her images are dressed in purdah despite the fact that she was a female visitor to their homes; perhaps this is done because men might subsequently view the photos.

Perhaps her most famous photograph is a self-portrait in which she stands next to her plate camera in a three-quarter profile while holding the lens cap and gazing out of the picture. She is dressed traditionally for a married woman in the photograph, indicating that traditional representations of domestic life were still required even as more women engaged in more modern activities like photography. Presently, her son Amarendranath Dutta owns a collection of her glass plate negatives, which includes this shot.

At the age of 82, Annapurna Dutta passed away in 1976.

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