What cities do you work in?
While I am based in New England, I have clients across the US. I also invite brides & grooms to contact me to photograph their destination weddings. Whether it is an island wedding or an exotic location, say a palace in Udaipur, I'll go really anywhere in the world and make myself at home.
Your Photography Style
My approach to photography can be best described as a balancing act
between fine art and the documentary aesthetic. It is mostly
unobtrusive and real, with little or no direction from me in terms of
how to act or what to do. Photographing weddings is very fluid process
for me. Because Indian weddings are unscripted celebrations, I also
let things evolve rather than force or guide my clients to follow a
certain scenario. If they are having fun and enjoying the moment and I
am left to do what I have to do, I capture my best images. There is
always time for formal, posed, portraiture which I also love to do.
But there is nothing better to get my creative juices flowing than the
act of simply immersing myself in a scene and capturing the
interactions and relationships of my clients with their friends and
family. My personal mantra, and I believe this best defines me, has
been to create images that are elegant, memorable and real.
Your choice of camera/ lens
I have always shot with Nikon's professional line of digital cameras
and fast lenses. I must also mention the flash system I use - they are
a combination of Nikon's SB800s and two Sunpak 120j strobes, usually
gelled and inter-connected wirelessly using Pocket Wizards. Off camera
flash absolutely rules!
Black & white Vs. Color photography - your thoughts
Some images lend themselves to being in color, some in black & white
or sepia, or however I think would best represent the emotion
displayed within the image. I have also started to enhance my images
using textures and other graphic elements when appropriate.
Indian wedding photos suffer from excessive use of flash - what's your
take?
Indeed without light, there is no photography. Should there absolutely
be a need to use flash, it needs to be handled efficiently and
elegantly. Most people strap their flash on the top of their camera
and point it right at their poor clients. On camera flash tends to
look cruddy, rarely flattering one's clients and causing people to
have the dreaded "red eye" or that blanched look. I use my strobes by
bouncing the light off of ceilings, walls and even floors! When
possible, I mix the ambient light with my strobe output so that the
images I produce mirror the exact look and feel of a setting as
experienced by my clients and their guests. And where space and time
allow it, I do set up strobe lights off camera, that are wirelessly
triggered. Creating memorable images is a lot of work, but this is
where hiring a professional makes more sense.
Post processing and Album design
I shoot only in RAW mode and convert the images to JPGs after color
correcting them. I use a few choice Photoshop actions to punch up the
colors and sharpen them for final output. With programs like Photoshop
or Painter one can go to town and manipulate one's images to such an
extent that they become more fantasy than reality. My goal, especially
with color images, is to accurately render my client's skin tones.
As far as album design goes, each of my clients receive a unique album
based on what I have experienced and captured on their wedding day.
The wedding album is the ultimate expression of my client's wedding
day. It is their first family heirloom so I take a good deal of time
in preparing the files and working on the design. If there is a
particular color that the bride has chosen for her decorations, I'll
try and use that in some way as part of her album as well. All of my
albums are hand-made using the very best materials. The pages in the
album have a special protective coating and depending on the size of
the albums, some are also delivered with a display case that has the
couple's portrait on it or some detail from their wedding that makes
it very special.
Your favourite wedding photos
My favorite wedding photos will always be those that are an honest
representation of my client's thoughts and feelings for each other and
their guests on their special day, are beautifully lit and exquisitely
composed.
A wedding photography experience that you wont forget
I like to tell people I rediscovered my sense of rhythm at my first
Gujarathi wedding. Out in California, several years ago now, I was in
the mix of things during the Dandiya Raas event of one particular
couple. With my eye glued to the viewfinder of my camera, I could see
these colorful red, yellow, green, purple sticks flying in the air
every which way. Even without music, I tend to move around a lot. But
as the dancers moved to their left, this time around I had somehow
anchored myself to one particular spot and didn't go with the flow.
Suddenly sticks came crashing into my camera and on my head. I hadn't
seen the dancers and they hadn't seen me. Thankfully, no one was hurt
nor was my camera damaged.
Advice for to-be-wed couples
It's not very often I get to visit a venue before the couple's wedding
day. When I do arrive to photograph an event, I almost always check to
see what the lighting is going to be like during the event. I make a
note of where the light is coming from; windows, doors, high or low
ceilings, lighting fixtures with halogen, fluorescent or tungsten
bulbs. I prefer venues with large windows that allow soft, beautiful,
natural light. When such a venue doesn't present itself, I just make
do with what I have and set up lights in the absence of anything
useful. From a color stand point, tungsten lights are orange in tone
and so would yield images that have a warm feeling to them. Standard
fluorescent tube lights emit a greenish cast that can be altered in
post production but are also challenging in other ways. Some wedding
venues have such high ceilings that it really doesn't matter what kind
of lights are up there because I will most likely use my off camera
strobes or a combination of strobes and ambient light to capture the
event.
Decor, makeup and clothing are really my client's domain and I feel
they should choose those based on their personal taste and budget
rather than what someone tells them would look great in pictures.
Today's brides and grooms are very fashion-savvy so I am very
confident that they will look and feel great.
