Jyoti Bhatt

Jyoti Bhatt Jyoti Bhatt is one of the founder members of the Center of Photography, Baroda. Before he turned to photography, however, Bhatt began his artistic career as a painter and a printmaker in the 1950s. He worked as a painter from 1954 to 1969 and also taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda. He says, "I was never interested in studies. You may say that since I was not good for anything else in life, I became a painter. I studied painting and printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, under stalwarts like N. S. Bendre, Sankho Chaudhari and K. G. Subramanyan. In the 70s, I learnt the intaglio method of printing and screen painting." Bhatt claims that he has never regretted taking to photography as an art form. "The photo-documentation work is equally creative. Also, my work has brought into spotlight those tribal artists who were deprived of any recognition or reward, he states. ?Since the 1970s, I have concentrated on documenting living art in rural homes that have been rapidly disappearing because of modern, consumerist lifestyles. Not that this is the kind of photography I like doing or I am passionate about, but somebody has to document these lifestyles before they get lost forever.?