How do you like it? That’s biwi standing on a chair in the balcony of our Goa house at 12 afternoon (our flat is at 5th fl). Canon EOS 5D MII. Sigma 50 f1.4. 1/200 seconds. f11. Nissing 866 mii at 1/4th power in manual mode triggered by Yongnuo 622 transceivers.
Let’s say you are getting married and you want some awesome candid shots taken on the special day. You have several tabs of several photographers’ websites open on your browser. So what exactly should you be looking for while selecting the best candid wedding photographers for your wedding? Let me tell you a story before I answer that. It’s a pretty interesting story I assure you.
More than ten years ago, in the city of Madras there lived a pretty girl named Satyanjali. A Hindu with origins in Uttar Pradesh. I will call her Anjali. She had a wonderful friend called John. A Christian with origins in Kerala. The friendship grew stronger by the day and over an year or two, they were pretty much in love. And then one day, Anjali’s dad asked her – what is it between you and John? You are not going to marry him, are you? He was angry. A devout Hindu was not going to like it if his dearest daughter was even contemplating to get married to a Christian.
Anjali could have lied. She could have told, no John is just a dear friend. And it could have cooled down her dad. At least for a while. Anjali had lied to him many a times before already. On various occasions. To avoid such awkward confrontations. So what if he had named her Satyanjali. But no, not now. She just could not. This was not the time to lie. And she did not. Yes, I intend to marry him. She said.
It was a bit of a struggle for her to be in touch with John thereafter. Her dad even got her office to give her leave. She was not supposed to be seeing John anymore. But she did. And once, when her dad found out, he even hinted at getting some of his powerful political contacts intervene. The protective love of a father for her child. Things never reached that stage though. In fact, Anjali even managed to get John to her house for a face to face with her dad.
What would you have to say if your sister did something like this? Asked Anjali’s dad.
She has the freedom to do whatever she has to. Replied John. Anjali’s dad couldn’t get more furious. Get out of this house, he said. John did.
One fine day, she was with John. Yes, again. And her dad found out. Anjali’s mom called her and asked her to return home. A friend tipped Anjali on the fact that her parents knew she was with John and something bad may happen this time. This was it. They decided to run away. For the sake of love. For the sake of all that was there between John and Anjali. Something much beyond being a Hindu or a Christian. Something which hearts so easily understand, yet the society often views as a crime.
John’s dad was in Middle East. He was supportive and all that. He suggested them to come over. John or Anjali did not have enough money. They borrowed 10k from a friend, took a bus to Kochi and bought tickets for Oman. They didn’t have any luggage. The looked like two people eloping. And they eloped. They returned in a month, to get married in a court. And after about a decade, John found out about ShaadiGraPher and wrote to me the following email:
“22nd April 2013, my wife and I complete 10 years of legal togetherness. I couldn’t give her every girls dream…a dream wedding…in fact I couldn’t give her a wedding at all. We got married in a civil service with auto driver, cook and some random as witnesses. At the time we feared for our lives due to the inter religious union but we survived and survived well. As we head towards the 10 year mark I’ve been scouting out locations for a quiet celebration with close family and friends. I suspect that we would be at the forty mark in terms of guests I’d like to give the run away bride and my wife a surprise ….and you maybe able to give me that opportunity to do so.”
John was looking for one of the best candid wedding photographers in Goa for this occasion and with me, he felt his search ended. Once the deal was sealed, I had to wait for about a month before John & Anjali arrived in Goa from Delhi. And their friends and family from various other parts of India / world. And I had a kickass time shooting. The light was kind of low, and that limited my ability to take a lot of pictures but I did the best that I could.
You can check out the full picture-story and many other such nice picture-stories on my wedding photography blog on ShaadiGraPher.com but here in this post, let me come back now to the question I began the post with.
What, by the way, do you think John and Anjali were looking for when they finally shortlisted me? They were looking for the ability to capture the real story of their cheerful wedding a decade after the runaway wedding. And that’s what you should be considering (IMHO) when you compare the work of various artists. Do you see a story? Or do you just see random artwork?
I have often seen couples liking someone’s work and then still not being able to book the photographer simply because they think he / she is ‘way out of’ their budget. Do you know why that happens? That happens not because people are poor or anything like that. They are still spending lakhs on booking a venue and on food and on DJ and everything. And yet they hypothetically ‘allocated’ a budget of “30k to 40k” for whole ‘photo-video’ thing. Of course not everyone does that, but many do. And so when they later find themselves awestruck with a wonderful artist’s work, they go crazy hearing the charges! There are photographers who charge anywhere between 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh a day and then there are us, who charge almost half of that (mostly because we are yet to get that one celebrity client whose pictures we can then market and randomly increase our price – 
– no, no, we are not kidding – we pretty much know where our quality of photography stands and the only reason we still charge half of most well known ‘famous’ photographers is simply because we are still waiting to get famous!). Anyway, so let me not drag too much. The point is simple – wonderful photographs which capture the essence of your wedding are worth every bit of penny that you may have to shell. So don’t allocate too little, and once you have figured out the budget, choose the photographer who you can trust with bringing out the real story of your wedding. That’s pretty much about it.
By the way, just to complete the story of the runaway bride, well, Anjali’s dad cooled down finally. He spoke to John three years after they had eloped. But spoke he did. And today, a decade later, it is only overpowering love that spreads across the two families. May John and Anjali get to celebrate many more of these happy decades! Once again, if you are interested, you can check out the full picture-story and many other such nice picture-stories on my wedding photography blog on ShaadiGraPher.com
Keywords: Candid wedding photographers, Best wedding photographers in India, Candid wedding photography, best candid wedding photographers in India
[I have borrowed this post from one titled "Best wedding photographer in Bangalore - the Bhopal shoot" posted on ShaadiGraPher.com]
I was a manager in a consulting firm in Mumbai when Anuja called me. One fine day. Must have been June or July.She worked in Bangalore then. She had been scouting for the best wedding photographers to shoot her upcoming wedding. And thats how she found us – ShaadiGraPher. We had a deal on phone and I met her soon in Bangalore. I have this feeling it was my birthday the day I met her. She worked for an advertisement agency and I met her in her office.
‘We have got regular photographers for taking pictures of everyone else. But I want you to focus on me. Just keep clicking my pictures. I really look forward to your pictures and they are going to be very very special.’
‘You will love the pictures’, I assured her. And then I came to my sister’s place (who lives in Bangalore) and cut a cake I guess. And carried on with a shoot in Bangalore the next day. Returned to Mumbai. Took a sabbatical from my job shortly. Got married to my girl-friend. Flew to Cape Town for our honeymoon and from there flew to Johannesburg to Mumbai to Bhopal, all ready for her wedding shoot. It was December already. And I was slightly jet-lagged but all ready. My first shoot as a married person.
Below are just three pictures from the 20 + picture story on ShaadiGraPher
Do check out the full story on ShaadiGraPher.com
Gulabo came over to our Goa house and we arranged some pre-recorded beats and tunes of Garage Band in the software on my iMac. And we liked the way it sounded. Then we wanted a main melody to go with that. I picked up one from my impromptu ‘dheere dheere’ performance on synth in Delhi from two moths ago (uploaded on FB). And then Gulabo and I worked upon the lyrics (retaining just the ‘dheere dheere’ line from the original poem, and changing the song from a description of evening to one about two lovers about to meet as the evening settles in). We stuck to my original melody and then we arranged pieces together. That’s what this audio clip is about. Some fun.
Gulabo is a girl who biwi and I first met two years ago during our mountaineering course. Yes, she was a course-mate. After the course got over, she went to Oxford univ to pursue higher studies (she is yet to complete her studies there). She is in Goa for a while, for an internship after which she will return to UK.
I am 29. Half the class is older than me. The Bollywood Dance class. Which has about 12 women / girls. And one me. I stand in one end and try hard to remember the steps. It is so difficult to do so. I try. I hardly speak to anyone else in the class. Actually I am positive that I haven’t spoken to anyone. I know it’s been just two classes so far but still. May be smiled at one or two of them when they looked at me. But that’s it. I am not sure any of them knows I am their dance instructor’s husband. Not that it matters. But still.
Before leaving for the previous class, like ten minutes before leaving, I trimmed my hair. By my beard-trimmer. Trimmed them down to no. 4. Or no. 5. Not too sure. I had seen Demi Moore trimming her hair in an action movie where she was training to be a marine. But only when you do it yourself you realize its not easy to make sure, the hair has really levelled, especially on the back of your skull. I had to ask biwi to help. She did a bad job. Not bad actually but not good either. Okay okay. Because she was annoyed I had to trim my hair just when it was time to leave for the dance class. And no, I was not inspired to trim down my hair by Demi Moore, alright. I gave the example to make you understand why I thought it was unnecessary to got a salon for getting your hair trimmed when you could do it yourself.
We are presently struggling with an idea bill of 18,000 bucks because the fuckers confirmed on sms and on call that they had activated a 3G plan on biwi’s phone, which she had asked for, when in their system they actually couldn’t. So all the internet for past few days was charged at some exorbitant price per KB which lead to a bill of 18k! It’s a mess and we just hope they are able to sort things out ASAP. No way we are paying them this money. Because both my phone and biwi’s phone get a common joint-bill, if the problem doesn’t get sorted soon, we both will have to change our numbers. Let us wait and see. What has been your worst cell-phone story by the way? Just asking!
Beimaan, Dil bada be-imaan
Hota nahi aasaan isey hai samjhana
Beimaan, Dil bada be-imaan
Tere liye shaitan
Meri naa ek maanaDil jeete yaa main jeetu
Dekhungi dekhega tu
Lo dil se sharat lag gaye
Mujhe to teri lat lag gayi, lag gayi
Biwi chose the above song for her first dance class in Goa. And the song for the next three classes. I have joined her class. They say na, biwi husband ko apne ishaare pe nachaati hai. A wife makes a husband dance on her moves. How literal can it get?
I suck at learning dance steps by observing others dance. So may be I am the weakest student in the class. The class only has women. And few girls. I am the only guy.
And because I already told biwi how strongly she needs to improve her verbal communication when teaching dance steps (else, I can never remember which leg to move first, which hand to move next), I must write here what I didn’t tell her after the class. The things that I liked. I liked the way she spoke to everyone in the class. The way she greeted them. And how it didn’t really feel like it was her first class. Or that she was seeing most of her students and talking to them for the first time.
But she still needs to improve her verbal communication. For my sake. Was it the right leg that had to be flicked at the count of eight or was it the left? Eh, never mind.
