Three Histories and Seven Lives: Investigating the Archives of South Indian Photo Studios, Tamil Nadu, 1880–1980

This article explores the diffusion and productions of commercial studio photography in South India (Tamil Nadu) from the time the first Indian-run studios opened in the 1880s up to the demise of analog photography—and thereby of many family-run studios—a century later. The particular focus of the article is on research carried out to constitute the stars.archive (Studies in Tamil Studio Archives and Society), the first digital archive of Tamil studio photography, which includes around forty-two thousand photographic images digitized inside studios, private homes, and secondhand shops all over Tamil Nadu. Through examination of the archive, the article suggests that a history of photography in this region needs to attend more closely to the specificities of appropriation of the photographic apparatus and its social uses by sourcing empirical data outside institutional archives. A closer examination of the content of the stars.archive reveals the diversification over time of the social uses of studio photography, far beyond the ubiquitous “studio portrait.”