I first came across Foy Nissen’s body of work, over two decades ago, while reading Gillian Tindall’s City of Gold. Suketu Mehta had acknowledged him in his eponymous ode, Maximum City. I spotted snatches of the Dane’s priceless photography as well. Over time, and because of my continued research and interest in the city’s heritage, his name kept popping
up across publications and periodicals, as well as in conversations with members of the heritage community. He had an aura. His envious archive of photos, silent dedication to his craft and his long-drawn love affair for a city he made his home, made for a fascinating storyline.

I began to understand the gravitas of his contribution as tracking the heritage beat took me deeper into the lives of some of its earliest and most dedicated guardians and chroniclers. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to meet him, because by the time my writing got me closer to his work, illness kept him confined to his home. It was in his passing in 2018, and the aftermath, when a tribute to his photography was planned at Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF), at Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in 2019, that I got my moment to enter his world, through his caretakers, Mona and Manju Mehra, his neighbours at Olympus Apartments on Altamont Road.