Bollywood’s ace fashion photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha touched lives and careers of so many actors and actresses. Through his works, he froze their beauty, poise and charm in timelessness — a responsibility Gautam took rather seriously. In his last interview with this newspaper, he spoke extensively on the need to preserve the legacy of the lensmen in the country.
“I think photographers have a social obligation. They capture everything around you and make you relive some moments that you may and never will come across. What is more important is preserving the work of photographers. We keep talking about our 5,000-year-old history but don’t care to preserve it. If we can’t do that then what are we talking about?”
Gautam, passionate about the need to archive and scathing about the government’s role, lamented, “Here we are talking about digitizing but the cost of digitizing pictures is enormous and even I as an individual cannot bear its costs. The mindset of the people especially the government needs to change. If you see countries like America and culturally refined ones like Italy and Spain, you’ll realise the kind of attitude and passion they have towards preserving their culture. Few people in this country are striving hard to preserve and build archives without any major financial support from the government.”
Gautam felt that it was the next generation’s responsibility to see that archiving is done. “Our national treasures need to be preserved and archived,” he said. Given his vast contribution to the field of photography, and his sudden demise, we can only hope someone steps in and works towards Gautam’s dream.