The Archival Gaze’ draws a timeline across technological changes and aesthetic movements in photography on the subcontinent, from India’s avid embrace of photographic processes in the 1840s to the contemporary moment which has challenged and expanded conventional practices within the field, this volume. In its ambit it covers colonial anthropological projects, the culture of the salon, the rise of the individual photographer marked by invention, the protean making of the gaze and the transformation of the photograph into a haptic, ritual object, as well as its recent expansion into the world of art and intermedial practices. The citations from scholars, critics and practicing photographers provide insights into the critical writing that has accompanied the text gives us an insight to photography criticism as it unfolded. Useful information on the making of photographic societies and associations, exhibitions, publications, technical interventions along with a discussion of seminal debates, controversies and series enrich the volume. The accompanying images include formal and informal portraits of communities and individuals, overpainted images, travel photographs and postcards, cabinet cards, collages, popular film posters, lobby cards and advertisements, photojournalistic documentations of political events and personalities, industrial and architectural photography, photo books and installations, and stills from film and video series. These form a layered visual compendium that enriches this encyclopedic study.