In the 1980s, there was no escaping Karan Kapoor. Born into Bollywood royalty, Shashi Kapoor’s son had a moderately successful acting career but there was little doubt that the camera loved him. Kapoor’s unforgettable stint as a model is summed up in two words – Bombay Dyeing.

But before he became the idealised male form on hoardings for a textile brand, Kapoor was a photographer himself.

“For me, photography came first," Kapoor said, "before acting or modelling.” Kapoor has been making photographs since he was 15.

“I have always been the kind of person who would get bored of just lying on a beach," he said. "On our holidays to Goa, I would end up riding around on my Royal Enfield, exploring the countryside, my camera always with me.”

The black and white world of Kapoor’s photographs, made over the course of 12-13 years when he built his first significant body of work, reveals poignant portraits of the Goan Catholic community: boys dressing up for a fete, a priest reading quietly in a church corner, musicians performing at a local feast.

Loutalim, Goa (1994). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).

Time and Tide, an exhibition of Kapoor's photographs curated by Tasveer, combines his earliest work on the Goa Catholic Community with photographs made through the 1980s and 1990s of the Anglo-Indian community of Kolkata. Each series captures the evanescence of people and places, lost to history, or changed by commercialisation.

“I remember the Goa of the 1970s – a quiet, friendly place untouched by the heavy demands of tourism," he reminisced, "I would ride around, go eat at Donna Rosa, meet [artist] Mario Miranda. I was never really searching for a particular visual. I was able to enjoy the last of Portugal Goa.” The Kapoors once had a family home on Baga Beach.

“I don’t even recognise it now,” he said.

Rachol Seminary, Goa (1994). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).
Three Kings feast in Chandor, Goa (1994). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).
Blind musician at a local feast, Loutalim, Goa (1994). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).

Kapoor likes to spend hours with his subjects, before he brings his camera out – it feels almost like an intrusion, he says. His trysts with the Anglo-Indian community have all been special – his mother was the British-born Jennifer Kendal, and his girlfriend from the years he spent shooting in Kolkata, was Anglo-Indian like him.

"I was embraced by the community as one of their own, for my traditionally 'non-Indian' looks," he said

For both projects, Kapoor devoted his time to the very old, or the very young.

Andheri, Bombay (1981). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).
Violet, Andheri, Bombay (1982). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).

"I was more interested in the older generation as they seemed to be the last remaining remnants of the British Raj – people who remembered the railway cantonments, the Marilyn Monroe look-a-like contest, the ‘Central Provinces’, and so on, a world long gone," said Kapoor. Drawn to the subject, he began researching the older residents of The Tollygunge Home for Anglo-Indians in Kolkata, where a lot of his photographs are from.

Mr Carpenter, Tollygunge, Calcutta (1981). Photograph by Karan Kapoor (Courtesy Tasveer).

Time and Tide will be on display at Tarq Gallery, Mumbai, from September 22 to October 16.