Description :
Dhirajlal Mody was an Indian pictorialist photographer and co-founder of the Photographic Society of India (PSI) in 1937. Trained in science, he worked as an expert dyer at The Indian Bleaching and Dyeing Company in Prabhadevi, while pursuing photography with his brother Sumanlal in makeshift darkrooms at home. Together, they explored experimental techniques and developed a distinctive pictorialist style marked by landscapes, architecture, portraits, and animals, often titled suggestively rather than descriptively.
Mody exhibited widely at international salons, including the London Salon of Photography and societies in Sweden, Denmark, and Brazil, earning recognition and awards. His experiments with tinting photographs predated the availability of color film in India. Following the death of his brother, he abruptly ended his practice, leaving behind a significant archive rediscovered in 2012 by his grandson, Tapan Mody. His legacy endures through his pioneering role in PSI and his contribution to the pictorialist movement in India.