Starting with Awaara (1951), he shot all of Kapoor's subsequent films for four decades, till his last, Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985).
Karmakar start his film career in Calcutta with Kismat ki Dhani (1945) followed by Milan (1946) directed by Nitin Bose for Bombay Talkies.
This started a career long association lasting four decades, working on films, such as Shree 420 (1955), Sangam (1964), Mera Naam Joker (1970), Bobby (1973), Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978), Prem Rog (1982), and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985).
[5][6] Born in Bikrampur, now in Munshiganj District, near present-day Dhaka, Bangladesh in a Bengali Karmakar family of goldsmiths, the profession which did not interest him much apart from his photography.
Raj Kapoor found Karmakar's work commendable when he saw his night sequence photography and high contrast lighting in his film Milan (1946).