It is one of the first photography studios in Kolkata (then Calcutta). Samar Chatterjee, the current owner of C. Bros, narrates the journey of the establishment. ‘My great-grandfather, Narayan Chatterjee, passed away at a very young age, forcing my grandfather to shift to a cousin’s house in Bagbazar. At the time, the studio wasn’t established.’ (Left) A film camera by which C. Bros used to take photographs and (right) chemicals which were used to restore the films.
‘Though people were not fond of photography then but the art form caught his grandfather’s interest. During a funeral, he arranged a camera and took pictures. Later when he got them developed, he noticed that the pictures had come out hazy. To this, his friend replied, ‘pictures of death are always blurred’,” Chatterjee continues
Then, Kunjabihari Chatterjee started experimenting. At another funeral, he again took photographs. This time, he developed the photographs himself to show what a ‘picture of death’ actually looks like. This is how the journey of C. Bros started. (Above) An old restored picture of rural India displayed at the shop
