For Vinit Bhatt, the world of imagery was beckoning, albeit in a discreet manner, from almost the time of his childhood that was spent in a ubiquitous Indian town of Bhavnagar. People from all walks of life interested him deeply, especially the impoverished, enough to form a quiet humanly connect that now helps him look past the façade of his subject and form a connection at the very basic level. A student exchange program turned aberrant when he ended up staying with a couple in a remote and unique village in Brazil. His father, during that program, was a photographer who introduced the joys of this medium of art.
Vinit went on to study engineering and embarked upon a career but somewhere there was a shift in the viewfinder and soon engineering was left behind to pursue, with singularity, the satisfaction of defining and redefining the narrative of a photograph.
Today, I am a happy, moving component of many of his works. We decide upon a subject, the protagonists, location, light, mood and then, during the process, a tranquil moment comes when all these strands are cinched together in a cohesive narrative and a photograph emerges which tenderly captures the fragility of a fleeting moment in our chaotic time.
I confess that I encounter that moment only when I see the final photographs. Not getting into the technical humdrum, I will say that Vinit can regard, visualize and capture from behind his camera, a poignant facet of ephemerality, which is invisible to us with our naked eyes.
The journey for this photographer, who employs a cinematic language to create intense photographs, has only just begun.
Pallavi Datta
Fashion writer
www.pallavistylediaries.com