The legacy of Kamat Foto Flash,a Mumbai based studio associated with publicity photography for the film world began with Damodar Kamat some six decades ago. His presence was strongly felt in the cinema industry for the two decades in which he shot over a lakh stills for movies like Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam, Pyaasa,
Pakeeza, Devdas, Ganga Jamuna, Bees Saal Baad, Hum Dono and many more. Damodar Kamat
came from a family of engineers, but as famous stories of famous people usually go, Kamat wanted out of all of that. His strong inclination towards the arts led him far away from science. He moved to Kolhapur, home to many aspiring Marathi film industry buffs to learn more about photography from the technicians famed for their expertise
in the field. And at the age of 19, he began his career as a cine publicity photographer in Bombay. In the year 1945 he started his own company in the name of Kamat Foto Flash in Bombay. Kamat Foto Flash are the pioneers in the Indian Film Industry. When the era of colour photography began, Kamat Foto Flash became one of the first photographers to shoot colour and black and white simultaneously. The regular tripod head was modified to accommodate two cameras (one to shoot colour, the other for black and white) to achieve similar frames. However, the colour photographs he shot were few, tragically few - cut short by his untimely death in 1967. But some notable movies he shot for are Sangam, Aman, and Mera Naam Joker. We the third generation of Kamat are involved in ensuring the negatives and prints of these timeless images and carefully archived for future generations. These photographs go far beyond the storyline of the films, having become freeze frames in the collective memory of more than a generation of people. And any journey for a student of Indian cinema, researcher of films or someone who simply loves cinema would do well to begin his journey here. And end here as well.
