The Rail saga in Black & White

CHENNAI: Photographs have always been an important part of our lives. And when they are as old as half a century, they act as portals of time-travel to the past. As we walk up the staircase at Wandering Artist in RA Puram,it is hard to ignore the set of black and white photographs on display. Those who are familiar with the city may recognise some of the places shown in these photographs. Amongst the 20 photographs displayed, there is one thing in common — a steam engine. ‘The Iron Horse’ is an exhibition 
of the steam loco photographs taken 50 years ago around Madras and Madras State by Ian Manning and curated by S Venkataraaman, more popularly known as PoochiVenkat.

“Horses used to be an important means of transportation in those days. When the steam engine came into being, the horses were used to pull it on track. But as technology improved and more innovations came in, stage coaches became regular passenger coaches and horses were replaced by steam engines,” says PoochiVenkat, and we understand, now, the title of the exhibition. 

The collection of 20 photos that are put up for exhibit form only a fraction of the total collection taken by Ian Manning. When the Australian worked as a faculty of Economics at MCC between 1965-1970, he had collected a total of 400 photographs. “When Ian was fifteen, his parents decided to take him on a world tour. He visited India and enjoyed it. So when he  got the chance to come back and teach here, he grabbed it happily,” Venkat says. He recalls an anecdote which Ian shared with him. “Once he was travelling up North and met an Irish photographer. As the two young men continued to click photographs, a local asked them why they were photographing Indian trains. He replied saying ‘we are doing it to preserve your heritage’.”

In order to digitise these photographs, Ian handed the negatives over to an enthusiastic Venkat, who specialises in the process termed as reprography. It took around five years to restore and reproduce these half-a-century old photographs. Was it a challenge to choose from 400 photographs? “Yes, that was the most difficult part. I analysed all the pictures, and decided to take photos where the trains and people were in equal amounts. That made things a lot easier,” he says. Venkat now plans to work on a series of ‘Before-After’ photographs, complementing Ian’s works, to show how much has changed over the years.