LAHORE: A single-day exhibition of black and white photographs by Zaidis spanning over the last many decades was the focus of attraction for many nostalgic souls at Alhamra Art Centre, The Mall, on Saturday.

Many found the show a bit disappointing as none of the photographs carried any captions. It was difficult for visitors to identify the people in pictures.

Shahid Zaidi, the organiser of the exhibition, later explained it to a fairly big gathering that captions were not given out of the fear of plagiarism as, according to Mr Zaidi, many of the photos which belonged to Zaidis, were posted on Facebook under the names of different people, who owned those photographs as their own.

Zaidi, flanked by moderator Tauseeq Haider, was briefing about the photographs; however amidst loud chattering of the people not much could be understood about the names and people whose photographs were on display by many in the audience.

The photographs mostly from 40’s and late 30’s had common people posing in the studio. There were wedding couples, a photograph of cathedral church where a wedding was taking place. Then there were portraits of Bano Qudsia, Ashfaq Ahmed, Ana Molka Ahmed, Dr Ajaz Anwar. Among the noted personalities besides other guests, who came to see the exhibition, were Salman Shahid, Dr Ajaz Anwar, Saeed Akhtar, Mustansar Hussain Tarar and cartoonist Javed Iqbal. There were also photographs from the family of Zaidis. There were photographs depicting the style of saris in those times and the mannerism of the people in 40’s.

Mustansar Hussain Tarar, speaking on the occasion, said during his school days he had bought a camera from Zaidis for Rs22. “It was a baby brownie camera.”

He termed the exhibition nostalgic and was of the view that Dr Ajaz Anwar and Saeed Akhtar should also had been invited to speak on the occasion because they knew a lot about Lahore.

Zaidis have been practicing photography since long. Syed Nazir Ali Zaidi and Syed Wazir Ali Zaidi studied at the Mayo School of Arts and went to Benaras and Allahabad where they set up their studios. Syed Mohammad Ali Zaidi, the eldest son of Syed Nazir Ali Zaidi, returned to Lahore in 1928 and began working as a photographer. In a couple of years he was able to establish his studio on The Mall.

Zaidis Photographers is a family-owned photography business in Lahore since 1930. They have photographed about 300,000 individuals and countless events, college groups and seminars. Their archives contain around 500,000 negatives of various sizes. Currently they are undertaking the mammoth task of digitizing the archives, a job they think will take about five years.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2019