Ace photographer Punalur Rajan passed away in Kozhikode on Friday. He was 81. He was an exceptionally talented photographer who specialised in taking black-and-white pictures of cultural icons.
Best known for the several celebrated photographs he took of Vaikom Mohamed Basheer, Rajan’s camera also captured other great figures of Malayalam literature such as M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Thakazhi, S.K. Pottekkat, Madhavikutty and Sukumar Azhikode. Many of those photographs are not just artistically brilliant, but they document Kerala’s cultural history as well. Perhaps no other photographer captured as many rare moments of Malayalam literature and did it with as much finesse.
He published two books. Basheer: Chayayum Ormayum and M.T.yude Kalam are both collector’s delights. The book featured not just beautiful pictures of these Malayalam literary giants, but of many other remarkable people who interacted with them over the decades.
Shortly after the publication of his book on MT, Rajan had told this writer that photographing the writer wasn’t as difficult as it was generally thought to be. And MT paid the best compliment ever to Rajan — “He is the spy the God sent to earth with a black-and-white camera.”
