Also known as Save Dada, Bhatvadekar was a portrait photographer and a rapt audience-member at the Lumiere shows. He is credited with being the first Indian to import a motion picture camera. In 1897 he filmed a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens, Bombay. He also filmed a short of the playfulness of monkeys. He held his film shows in tents.In 1901 Bhatvadekar filmed the return of Ragunath P. Paranjpye, who had secured a distinction in mathematics from Cambridge University. Save Dada exhibited this as a newsreel. In 1903 he filmed the durbar organized on the occasion of the coronation of Edward VII.
