A young girl in front of mandana paintings, Rajasthan, 1970

A Rathna tribal house, Gujarat, 1980.

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Children at the weekly market, Chhota Udaipur, Gujarat, 1971

A tribal boy with a ceremonial mask, South Gujarat, 1987.

How: Working during the pre-globalisation and pre-digital era, Bhatt used a 35mm Nikon camera and covered parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar. “We used second-hand reels or leftover reels from movies. Since we didn’t use the same type of material, the image quality differed,” elaborates Bhatt. His photographs comprise natural shots as well as images of self-aware rural folk posing for the camera. “If the person is aware of the camera, you can capture the reaction and anthropologically, it becomes an important photograph,” he believes.

Durga, Mithila, 1977

A village house, Rajasthan, 1979.

Where: Of the 60,000 images that Bhatt captured during his travels, Tasveer gallery selected 45 from the collection to form part of the photo-exhibit, Jyoti Bhatt: Photographs from Rural India. This is part of the Focus Photography Crossover Festival 2015.

A tiger and calf, Rajasthan, 1973. Pics courtesy/Jyoti Bhatt/Tasveer

Two girls from a farming community standing near the wall of their house, Rajasthan, 1988.