Fading Frames: The Quiet Disappearance of Chandigarh’s Photo Studios

As smartphones and filters take over, the once-bustling photo studios of Chandigarh are quietly disappearing. These spaces were scenes of anticipation, where families arrived dressed up, ready to capture something lasting. Today, while the world moves faster and images come more easily, what lingers are the memories of these carefully staged portraits and the culture they represented.

The Rise of Photo Studios and Their Place in Chandigarh

Photo studio backgrounds first emerged in the 19th century, growing out of the desire to capture lifelike images without the long wait or cost of painted portraits. What began as an elite affair soon became a popular cultural practice, as technological advances made photography quicker and more accessible. These studios offered a controlled environment with lighting, backdrops, and posed settings, turning the act of being photographed into a meaningful experience for many families.

In India, photography found its way through colonial routes and flourished in urban centres like Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. By the time Chandigarh was established as an independent India’s modern city, studio photography had already become a respected profession. But in Chandigarh, it took on a distinct flavour reflecting the city’s planned design, cultural aspirations, and educated middle class. The studios here embodied a sense of order, pride, and identity that matched the city’s vision. In this setting, a simple photograph was often interpreted as a symbol of arrival, memory, and a sense of belonging.

Why These Studios Still Live in Our Memories

Photo studios once held a special place in people’s lives as emotional landmarks. A visit to the studio often meant that it was an event in itself, one that brought families together in preparation and excitement. Outfits were carefully selected, hair was neatly combed, and smiles were practised in the mirror. “It used to be an outing for the weekend altogether,” recalled Mrinal, 40, capturing the sense of occasion. The entire process from getting ready to receiving the final print carried a sense of ceremony and significance.

These memories have carved out a deep emotional imprint. For some, they preserve laughter and innocence, like Sukrit, 38, who remembered dressing up as cartoon characters with his siblings, turning a prank into a portrait. For others, they hold bittersweet moments. Krishna, 45, who owned a studio, shared the story of a man bringing his 103-year-old mother in for one last photograph, a memory she wished to complete with her late husband. These stories reflect how studios helped people freeze time in a way that felt sacred. Unlike today’s disposable digital images, studio photographs had weight. 

The Quiet Erosion of Memory in the Age of Screens

With the rise of smartphones and social media, the way we capture and remember has fundamentally changed. Taking photos has become an everyday reflex, quick, constant, and often thoughtless. Studies show that more than 90% of photos today are taken using smartphones, and most users click dozens every day. But in this overflow of images, the meaning once tied to photographs has begun to vanish. Mrinal recalls when “the price of the pictures and the drag of being on time used to be key to a photograph.” That effort made the memory feel earned. Today, that sense of occasion has been replaced by the casualness of swipes and filters.

What’s getting lost is the emotional weight that came with those older moments. Sukrit remembers a playful moment frozen in time when his mother “fake scolded” him and his siblings for dressing as cartoon characters, then took them to the studio to make a memory of it. Delnaz, 31, too, holds onto an old group photo from a school trip with friends and family.  

While photography services are still thriving in terms of numbers and digital business, the heart of it, especially in cities like Chandigarh, has quietly dimmed. Photos now live in phones, not on walls. We scroll past our memories instead of sitting with them. What was once a ritual, a shared family event, has become an afterthought. In this digital flood, the studio’s role as a keeper of stories is slowly disappearing.

Holding On Before It’s Gone

The slow vanishing of photo studios in Chandigarh is about losing a tactile, deliberate way of remembering. As Krishna puts it, “A huge cultural component and its simplicity are gone. What was once a yearly ritual has become a daily, mundane act.” The shift to smartphones and social media may have made photography more accessible, but it’s also stripped away the ceremony and shared joy that once came with it. Sukrit reflects on this loss sharply: “We’ve lost excitement over memories and pictures. We’re living every day not in the present but as a memory for the future.”

To get more search results while googling "photo studio near me", we need more action. City archives or local heritage groups can begin by collecting and digitising studio portraits, creating open-access online repositories that honour these visual records. Schools and colleges could integrate basic analogue photography modules or oral history workshops with former studio photographers.

Municipal grants or CSR initiatives could fund pop-up retro studio booths at cultural events, allowing new generations to experience the charm of a posed, printed photograph. As Delnaz observed, “It’s a mundane thing to take a picture now… with my entire life available for public consumption on social media.” But perhaps, with conscious preservation and creative reuse, photo studios can reclaim their place as living memory spaces.