In this context, it makes sense to go back to the original meaning of the word, 'photography', which meant "to write with light" instead of what it came to stand in for, namely, its indexical capabilities. To see photography as a means "to inscribe with light" rather than a method "to bounce light off and register as an echo, a physical presence" offers us a different way of understanding photography today. At the outset, it might be constructive to remember that the belief that analogous photography is somehow true to the moment because it records directly by the chemical transformation of the film, giving the medium a degree of veracity, has its own pitfalls, and a great deal has already been written on this issue. Although adherents of straight photography remain 'true to the medium' by disallowing all attempts to alter 'reality' through technical intervention either before or after the photograph is taken, seeing it as a violation of the practice, it has repeatedly been argued that the 'un-doctored photograph' has always stood on slippery ground. A photographer's choice of a frame from a whole range of alternative frames, after all, is also an act of agency - an act of erasure of that which is not framed. Moreover, photographers, more often than not, have often an inconsistent relationship with the indexical. There are numerous ways in which photographs have been altered prior to the invention of digital technology, and as Satish Sharma and others have pointed out, it was a fairly common practice in vernacular photography in India.²

On the other hand, photographers who have been wielding the camera for long, taking analogous images, have developed a love-hate relationship with the digital medium and its synthesizing abilities. Photography, as seen by them, has always had a different imperative, with its own set of magical possibilities. They have hardly ever sought legitimation within the domain of 'art' and not aspired to the unique condition of painting by creating the artificial rarity of a 'limited edition' of their work. They have, in fact, been rather circumspect in switching over to the digital mode - the digital form has increased the likelihood of photographic fiction, throwing into disarray their relationship with the indexical. The photographer, Sainath P., whose works have been viewed by over half a million people, primarily in rural India, is a case in point. In contrast to Sainath, his current collaborator, the photographer, Dayanita Singh, who began her career as a photo-journalist, has now carved a niche for herself within the white cube of the gallery space after a long internal tug-of-war with respect to the practice of photojournalism and its reception.

Therefore, for a more nuanced understanding of the recent shifts in photography-based practices, it is necessary to see how interdisciplinary exchanges have mutually transformed ways of thinking about the medium. To illustrate my essay, besides the work of Sainath P. and Dayanita Singh, I will look at the work of Rameshwar Broota, Pushpamala N., and Probir Gupta - artists who have used photography extensively in their work in order to either transform or reinvent its function.

One artist, who has had a long term, consistent relationship with photography is the painter, Rameshwar Broota. His foray into photography - which he learnt entirely by trial and error, began in the 1970s, and it has remained an obsession with him for over three decades. Piled up in his studio in New Delhi are stacks of negatives and contact sheets of photographs, as well as collages and manually altered photographs. Several images appear in the form of cut-outs on sheets of plastic, placed over each other, strangely anticipating one basic photoshop method of building up an image in layers. Cloning, altering scale, or else, inverting the image, are various other ways in which he seems to have anticipated what computer technology would eventually allow. A careful look at these photographs reveals that three decades ago, Broota had launched a full-scale investigation into various ways of expanding the parameters of photography by manual additions.