This is a fascinating image. It is as though I am watching the process of a certain kind of photography unfold. A photographer, Raghu Rai, is in the midst of photographing a group of women sitting at the edge of a pond. The two women in the centre of the group swerve away from the camera, shielding their faces behind their companions. With two cameras hanging from his neck and a hulking camera bag at his side, the photographer backs into a bench, almost leaning against another seated woman.

This photograph was taken by Jyoti Bhatt and is simply titled, Raghu Rai, Chota Nagpur. So it is a portrait of a photographer engaged in the act of making images, while the subjects of the photographer’s interest serve to avoid him. I think about how these women had come out to enjoy a few hours of leisure, at the edge of a pond, with their friends, and in the middle of this, were interrupted by a photographer, sheepishly smiling at them while plunging a camera inches from their faces. It might have been taken as a light moment in real life, interspersed with nervous laughter, and the photographer urging them to pose while he attempted to get his ‘shot’. I think about the discomfort floating across the pond, and the silence after the two photographers leave, as the women try to get back to their calm.