Go Old-School: This Mumbai Photographer Will Recreate Your Family's Vintage Photos

Family photographs these days are sparse, and at best you’ll have a hazy selfie on the phone. Go old-school, and get vintage black-and-white family photographs taken {with props, sets, et al} thanks to Shirish R Karrale’s photography project.

While rummaging through our Godrej family cupboard {you know just the steel grey one}, we’ve stumbled upon old black-and-white family photographs preserved between sheets of plastic. After rounds of exclaiming, momentarily being excited and trying to guess who’s who, these pictures are kept back to be dusted and forgotten.

Shirish R Karrale, a Mumbai-based photographer, and advertising professional, is taking us all back in time, with his vintage family portrait series of photographs that could feature you and your family, circa 1972.

What started as a one-off stint at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is now a regular affair. Shirish recreates vintage family photographs with costumes, props, and set up of that era.

Be it a typical Maharashtrian sari, a shikhari costume, a Parsi kippah, clothes resembling those worn by royalty, Shirish sets up the stage for you and your family to strike a pose in front of you, and then clicks you. For authenticity, he even arranges backdrops that would work well from the era, including gramophone, old-style telephones and even plush chairs.

He then edits the perfect frame in sepia and black-and-white tints, and gives a framed 20X25 in photograph to take home. This comes a tad expensive at INR 25,000.

Gather up the family, get set in costumes and go in for a trip back to the ages, at least in a picture. Get in touch with Shirish on rkshirish@gmail.com