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Processes
One of the problems inhibiting the spread of photography in the early years were the patents taken out on their inventions by both Daguerre and Talbot in England and some other countries. These appear also to have had a restraining effect on photography in India in the 1840s.
There seems to be no clear record of when the first photograph was taken in India. Some sources suggest that a lithograph was published of Calcutta in 1840 based on a photograph, and that the first commercial photograph taken in India dates from 1844.
The first native Indian photographer known by name appears to be Nawab Ahmed Ali Khan of Lucknow, although the exact date at which he started to take pictures seems not to be unclear. Although some sources state 1845, it may have been after 1850; certainly the earliest picture taken by him in the India Office collection is dated 1855.
The first portrait studios started to advertise in 1849 and there are several daguerreotypes that possibly date from around that time, as well as a few salt prints from a similar period. There seems to be little evidence of earlier photography.
The wet collodion process was published in 1851/2, without any restrictions on its use. Talbot attempted to claim that his calotype patent also covered the new invention, but he lost the case when he took a photographer to court. After this defeat he also gave up efforts to enforce the patent on the use of the calotype, and photography was freely available to anyone who wanted to use it.
Daguerreotypes
Photography really took off in India on a large scale in the 1850s. Portrait studios, using the daguerreotype, were being advertised by 1849, and their business soon grew. They continued to make daguerreotypes for some years because the relative simplicity and speed of the process enabled them to produce small pictures in a few minutes at reasonable prices, but for other uses the new process quickly dominated. Probably the best known of these daguerreotypists was William Johnson, who had come to Bombay as a civil servant in 1848, and four years later was running a studio there, in the mid-1850s in partnership with William Henderson. Johnson was one of the founders of the Bombay Photographic Society. Johnson later worked with the wet plate process, using a whole plate camera (8½x6½ inches) producing a number of well bound copies of his three volume collection, 'Photographs of Western India', the three volumes covering 'Costumes and Characters,' and two of 'Scenery, Public Buildings.' A set of this extremely valuable work that had been presented to the patron of the Bombay Photographic Society was recently discovered in the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University in Texas, USA, where it had lain uncatalogued for many years.
Johnson also published a two volume work of his pictures of people in London in 1863, entitled 'The oriental races and tribes, residents and visitors of Bombay.' Probably very few copies of any of his works will have been made, as the pictures at this time had to be produced separately as albumen prints and pasted onto the printed pages.
Wet Plate or Calotype?
For the amateur photographer and commercial photographers wanting to produce large prints, the choice in the 1850s was between wet plate and calotype. Many amateurs and some professionals preferred the calotype (some using the waxed paper variation) as the paper could be prepared beforehand and processed at leisure.
Working with wet plate in Indian conditions must often have been uncomfortable, although many photographers will doubtless have trained their servants to perform much of the hard labour, as well using them to carry the heavy equipment from place to place. Although we think of India as being hot, Samuel Bourne's problems when photographing at altitude in the Himalayas were mainly caused by extreme cold temperatures.
