Famous lensman & Satyajit Ray's official still photographer Nemai Ghosh expires

Kolkata: Oscar winner movie director Satyajit Ray's official still photographer Nemai Ghosh died here today.He was 86.His end came at his residence here around 7 am when his wife and his bother were present, family source said.

Ghosh started his association with world famous movie maker Ray on epoch making Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969).He would continue to be the director's on-set photographer till Agantuk (1991). 

Besides clicking iconic impressions of actors like Utpal Datta, Sharmila Tagore and Smita Patil, Nemai Ghosh was a noted chronicler of Bengal's theatre history.He also worked extensively in documenting tribal life in parts of India.

Ghosh has penned the books Dramatic Moments: Photographs and Memories of Calcutta Theatre from the Sixties to the Nineties, The World on a Canvas and Manik Da: Memories of Satyajit Ray. 

He served as a jury member on the National Film Awards in 2007 and wasawarded the Padma Shri in 2010. In 2014, his photobook Kolkata was published with a foreword by Amitabh Bachchan.

Ghosh's initiation into professional photography began after visiting Burdwan in West Bengal, when Ray was shooting Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969).On seeing his photographs, clicked with a second-hand camera purchasedfrom a friend, Ray was impressed. 

In an interview to National Herald in 2019, Ghosh recalled Ray saying, "You have shot them exactly the way I would have. You have got the same angles."

 Apart from documenting Ray and his films, Ghosh also shot the making of Ritwik Ghatak's Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (1974), Mrinal Sen's Interview (1970), Calcutta 71 (1972) and Ek Adhuri Kahani (1971), Gautam Ghose's Paar (1984), and MS Sathyu's Ijjodu (2010).

 "I am choosy about film assignments because I insist on reading the entire script of a film before accepting the work," Ghosh once said. "I do this becauseI work hard to sustain the high standards Ray helped me establish."Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condoled the demise of Ghosh.(UNI)