In Photos: Asia’s Oldest Camera Market Copes in the Smartphone Age
“Photography doesn’t need mastery with the newer models of cameras,” a shop owner in Camera Wali Gali says.
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A day ahead of World Camera Day, held on 29 June, I set out for Asia's largest market for cameras and their parts.
Sprawled across congested lanes between Red Fort and Shish Ganj Gurudwara in Chandni Chowk, Camera Wali Gali houses some of the oldest camera shops in Delhi.
Established in 1955, Madan Jee and Co is easily one of the oldest shops here.
Madan Jee Kapoor, who used to run a camera shop in Peshawar, had to re-establish his business in Delhi. Word has it that a mall stands on the site of his old camera shop in Peshawar.
His son Raj Kumar Kapoor took up the business. To my dismay, the shop had sold off all the older models of cameras as newer models came to the market.
Poring over old photos of the shop with his oldest employee, Kapoor beams with joy while talking about Kodak but remains unattached to the new technologies.
Walking past a few old shops, I walk into a shop at random whose walls had an array of a few photos taken over the years.
There I find Rajendra Kumar, who established the shop around 1980, sitting sullenly behind the desk, complaining about the decline in sales of cameras at his shop.
"Phones have cameras, why will people need to buy cameras separately? Only professionals do that," Kumar says.
I hunt for albums that used to be an essential item in all camera shops, but find none.
Ramesh Kapoor, who converted his printing shop into a shop for cameras, tells me that it will be impossible to find albums.
"Printing photos isn't fashionable anymore. We dumped our old printers."
He begs to differ from Rajendra Kumar when it comes to declining sales of cameras.
"People are being inspired to take more and more photos thanks to mobile phone cameras, so SLRs are being sold like hot cakes," Kapoor says.
“But of course, photography doesn’t need mastery with the new cameras. If you don’t like the setting after clicking a photo, then you change it, exactly like you are doing right now,” he says tauntingly as I fiddle with my camera settings.
Stepping outside his store, I find vendors selling cheap selfie sticks.
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