Hyderabad, Mar 16: Mohammed Safiullah, an enthusiastic collector of the rare Nizam photographs in Andhra Pradesh''s Hyderabad, is the proud owner of the photographs of the seven Nizams who ruled the state for two centuries till Indian independence in 1947.
If 42-year-old historian Safiullah is to be believed, Mir Mohammad Ali Khan was the first Indian ruler to be photographed. According to him, before that, only miniature paintings existed.
He added that the first pictures of the Hyderabad city date back to 1850''s.
According to Safiullah''s research, the erstwhile royals used to invite photographers from bigger cities like Bombay and Calcutta.