niraj's blog

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~Nora Ephron

A wedding is a very special event not only for the couple to be, but for the two families, relatives and friends. And if its an Indian wedding, well, its an event like no other . The wedding rituals in India are just as diverse as its rich and vibrant culture. Capturing it all in camera is fun and challenge at the same time.

Here is Ashwini and Shantanu’s wedding from the eyes of a wedding photographer. I had just upgraded to Canon 7D and couldnt wait to use it. With the superb EF 85 f1.8 and the super-wide EF-S 10-22, I believed I was covered for all situations. The wedding was to take place in a wedding hall with a huge open lawn attached to it for the evening’s reception. I had not planned on using any flashes (though I had a 580 EXII) and I fully depended on the fast 85mm for almost all my pictures except the group shots. Wedding halls are well lit not only by the electrical lighting (mostly fluorescent) inside but also by video lights. The video lights combined with the fluorescent lighting gives strange color casts on skin. Something to watch out for and knowing which one is the dominant lighting and adjusting the white balance accordingly.

Posted here are a few ‘spreads’ out of the album. Do check out Xlens Imaging for more…

Front (inside cover and page 1)

Theres a ritual a couple of days before the wedding day, where the ladies wear colorful new bangles and get beautiful floral designs of Mehendi colored over their palms and hands.  They are done with hand with just a plastic cone filled with mehendi paste. Quite an art..

Mehendi

A part on left of this page is intentionally blank. Leaving blank areas does have a positive, ‘spacious’ feel to it.

Heres a collage of the Mehendi event. Such collages are very important to tell a story and also takes much less real-estate on the album.

Bangles and mehendi

Heres Shantanu getting ready with assistance from the best man, Saurabh. His sherwani was opulent but difficult to put on.  On the right is the final peep into the mirror just before he walked out. This one is one of my personal favorites.

Getting ready for the big moment

A family shot along with a B&W of the attached reception lawn and stage outside (a lil retro processing).

Family

And heres the big moment where the garlands are exchanged, just before the ‘saat phere’.

Ashwini with the garland

The couple on the stage at the reception, which was hosted the same evening.

At the Reception

I couldnt do the outdoor, exclusive couple shoot as they were really busy with all the rituals post wedding and had almost no time at all.

I had these layouts in my mind when I was shooting. Many of these images were made with the layout in mind. That really helps when laying out the album pages. The album finally had about 125 images in 26 10″x28″  spreads. This is a relatively small album. Typical ones would be about 30 (60 pages) to 50 spreads (100 pages). They appear to be of different dimensions in the post as the image file sizes are different. The album shows them just fine.

If you are planning a wedding and want your album to stand out above anything you have ever seen before, please contact me .

~Niraj