Hit The Road With Us Every Week

CHENNAI: It's easy to miss Ellis Road if you're not looking for it. Ensconced in the heart of Triplicane, the lane breaks off from Wallajah Road just before it connects to Mount Road, a small street that's become a photographer's haunt.
Ellis Road might look like any other commercial street in Chennai choked with shops and traffic, but if you want to buy a camera, accessories, design photos or make a collage, it is the place to go.
"This road has become synonymous with photography. Most professional photographers, not amateurs, come here. Others want their photos to be designed creatively," says Suresh Babu, who runs Glo, a digital photo lab. He says Glo was among the first labs to go digital in Tamil Nadu. "I've been interested in photography since childhood. I joined my friend T S Ramanan, a photographer and currently my boss, to take wedding pictures. We got offers to work in films, and eventually started Glo in 1980," he says.
In the early 80s, the area was known for artists' who would mount pictures onto frames or blow up small pictures. It evolved to manual printing of black and white pictures, which involved dark rooms and mixing chemicals by hand. As technology advanced, colour photos came into focus till about 10 years ago when digitisation took the field by storm.
But Ellis Road has not always been about photography. It was once a quaint street that was dead by 8 pm. "In the 80s, it was scary to go out after dark, you would hardly see a living soul," says Sajiadha Begum, who with her husband Ameer Khan, owned Photopan, one of the oldest labs on the street, which went out of business in 2005, after 20 years.
Begum still lives on Ellis Road with Ameer and their son Khan Abdul Gaffer Khan, and now run SAK Digital lab that does passport photography. Many who worked with Photopan have started their own businesses or joined digital labs.
A few of the old-timers say light artists and photographers started setting up businesses on Ellis Road because film distributors lived near Casino theatre in the 80s. Others say it was a convenient location for people from other states who were looking for good equipment as it is well connected by buses and is also close to the station.
SM Kumar (32), a photo designer, has been in Chennai for the past 13 years. "I came from Tirunelveli in search of work. A relative introduced me to photography. I've stayed in business by keeping in touch with advancements in the field," he says.
"Earlier, the street had only about five printing labs. Vani colour lab', a manual lab, was among the first. I worked there for two years. In the early 90s, the place was better known for auto-financing shops. The buzz due to sales of cameras is recent. Allied businesses such as vinyl materials and poster-printing have also grown now," says Mathan, 47, who owns VM Foto Lab.
Though the photography market is flourishing, professional photographers are less in demand. "It has become a seasonal business; we're only called during weddings or functions. Since digital cameras hit the market, everyone has become a photographer," rues A Raja, vice-president of Chennai Video and Photography Association that has about 2,600 members.
"I don't know how long Ellis Road will remain busy. The labs too might dwindle as anyone can use photomaking software easily," says Gomathi Shankar, who has been working in Dina Colour Lab for 12 years.
But for those like Srinivasan (47), a photographer whose life revolves around Ellis Road, the street has grown with him. "I took up photography at a time when it wasn't popular, and luckily, the neighbourhood I grew up became a place for photography," he says. And like Srinivasan, Ellis Road's growth will depend much on its ability to keep pace with innovation.