His father, Richard Bartholomew (1926–1985) was a Burmese refugee who settled in the Indian capital and who came to be one of the country's leading art critics, as well as a painter, poet, and photographer.

He participated in the city’s emerging theatre scene and even produced, in the ’70s, a series of events called “Thru Pablo’s Eyes” which was based on rock music accompanied with slide and film projection and live performers.

[5] To make ends meet, and to finance his photo documentary projects, he worked in advertising and as a stills photographer, most notably on the sets of Satyajit Ray's Shatranj ke Khilari (1977) and Richard Attenborough's 1982-film, Gandhi.

[6] From 1984 until 2000, Bartholomew was represented by the French-American news photo agency, Gamma Liaison[7] during which time he primarily covered conflicts and developments in the South Asian region.

[4] During his teenage years, he started photographing his family and friends and life on the streets, including the worlds of the marginalised rag pickers, sex workers, beggars, and eunuchs.

[11] In July 2007, Outside In: A Tale of Three Cities, a retrospective revisiting of the same archive of photographs from his teenage diary, shot in Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta, was shown at Rencontres d’Arles.