Photograph with a view of the Hussain Sagar lake to the north of Hyderabad, taken by Lala Deen Dayal, c. 1890. In the 19th century era of pioneering photography mostly dominated by Europeans in India, Deen Dayal earned renown as a hugely successful Indian photographer. Born to a Jaina family in Sardhana near Meerut, he studied photography while an engineering student, and took it up professionally encouraged by mentors such as Sir Henry Daly. His technical excellence and attention to detail made him much in demand and he took official photographs of colonial events and administrators, including Lord Dufferin, Viceroy 1884-88. In 1884 he was appointed court photographer to the Nizam of Hyderabad and founded a studio in Secunderabad which is still run by his descendents today. He specialised in portraiture and Indian views.
Hyderabad, founded in c.1590 by the Qutb Shahi dynasty originally centred in nearby Golconda, is the capital of Andhra Pradesh and India's fifth largest metropolis. It is separated from its twin city of Secunderabad, founded by the British in the early 19th century, by the Hussain Sagar, an artificial lake. The Hussain Sagar was created in 1562 by Sultan Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah to help relieve a water shortage and named after Hussain Shah Wali, a holy man who had helped the sultan recover from an illness. It is fed by streams from the river Musi. The once immense Hussain Sagar has shrunk in size and is now a complex of parks, statuary, recreation grounds and boating clubs.
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