PC Little passes away

LUCKNOW: Prakash Chandra Arya, better known in Lucknow circles as PC Little, died on Tuesday. Little died of a suspected cardiac arrest during his sleep at his Aliganj-based home. He was 73.
Little was a keen photographer, painter and an avid collector of rare cameras. He served as former director, regional centre of National Academy of Fine Arts in Lucknow and former head of the department of commercial art and photography at Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lucknow.
Little is survived by his sons, Avinash and Bhupesh, and his wife Asha.Little's cremation ceremony will be held at Bhainsa Kund at 11:30 am on Wednesday. Bhupesh Little said: "My father had been ailing for a few days. We suspect it was a case of cardiac arrest. We came to know he passed away when he overslept.''
Apart from his interest in commercial art, which he taught at Lucknow's Art college, Little was a zealous collector of some of the rarest cameras in the history of photography. His collection included the vintage Mighty Toko P.W., Made in Occupied Japan, the Nikon S2 Rangefinder, a 1954 classic, the 1932 model Leica II and the 1938 bestseller Rolleicord Model K3 among others. At last count, his collection of antique cameras cross 400.
Though collecting rare cameras was a passion, Little was also known to have been a talented photographer and graphic artist. In the last one year, the retired teacher of art had taken to turning his own samples of nature photography into canvasses of abstract, graphic art, some of which he even displayed at exhibitions.
Well known in the city as a photographer, Little was also regarded as a master at repairing cameras; a task for which, most of the city's established photographers continued to visit him. After cameras, Little had also moved to collecting still and movie projectors, which he was proposing to exhibit.