The Moments of Virtue blog

Katia’s wedding to Roydon always brings up that sweet, light, warm feeling – probably because they were such a good sport. Having been together for a while, they hung pretty loose with each other – fooling around with the groomsmen, joking about probable gaffes. No self-conscious preening with the bridesmaids or checking oneself in the mirror every two minutes to smooth unwanted creases. Going by the arrangements, a lot of time had been invested into the event. It was now time to unwind and enjoy it all.

Roydon rang me up a few months before his wedding to discuss it’s coverage, a mutual friend of Katia’s having introduced us. A wedding in Goa of Goans? Who would want to miss that?

Roydon works in shipping off Singapore, while Katia comes from a prominent business family. The one lasting imprint I have of her bungalow was the scorching yellow it was painted in and a classic, roomy Mercedes-Benz that must have matured into it’s thirties. Talk about anything vintage, and you’ll have my attention. Talk about a vintage car, and I’ll step back into a reverie, being driven around by my Dad in his British made Triumph Herald of the 1960′s. Old cars – they have such a grandfatherly character to them!

This wedding was also unique as I was shooting along with another photojournalist, Glyn Pereira and the most pleasant-mannered traditional videographer I have worked with, a Mr. Bobby. Not only did we chat up about his life when we had a spare moment, he ferried me around a vehicle-choked Panjim, caused by Sonia Gandhi’s arrival in the city, that I could scarcely comprehend, let along negotiate. He also had his cousin drop me back at my hotel at two in the morning. Hospitality, done the Goan way.

A beautifully orchestrated Wedding Dance followed the church service, with the couple being showered with confetti by everyone present, having arranged themselves in a neat circle. This was followed by a bunch of slow, romantic melodies that got the older couples to colonize most of the floor. Lavish spreads of food, spirits that flowed freely and moody lighting under the open, starlit sky must have made it a night to remember for the guests. The best was saved for the last, when Alcatraz – one of Goa’s top bands – set the floor on fire with some racy dance numbers.

Later on, I received a lovely testimonial from the couple:

“Shashi, the photographs are first class!
We are delighted with the photos – they are so beautiful and will forever remind us of our wonderful wedding day. The photos really captured all the fun our family and friends were sharing with us throughout our day! We had an amazing day, still wishing we could do it all again too :-)
Thanks so much for making our wedding and reception memories so very special by giving us such a superb collection of photos to keep forever, especially the candid shots which were a pleasant surprise. You are truly talented and great at what you do. Every moment of our special day is now recorded through these brilliant photographs, and we can re-live our wedding day over and over again. Everyone who has seen our photos has been overly impressed and we will certainly recommend you to anyone and everyone!
Thank you Shashi, we truly appreciate your efforts.”

Here are a few of my favorites from the wedding.

Funny thing. Many of the weddings I’ve covered this year, and late last year, have been of couples in the finance industry. Inevitably, the Big G appears on their resume at some point in their career. Madhuri, herself of a similar pedigree and who’s wedding to Rajesh I covered last year, had Pallavi and Ranjith write in to me about their wedding. Earlier, Ranjith’s mother had gotten in touch about her daughter’s wedding, which I unfortunately could not cover due to another booking. And, when Ranjith wrote in about his plans of a double-barrelled wedding in Goa, I jumped right in.

The discussions I have had with Pallavi made it evident how difficult it was for them both to set aside their instinct of massaging numbers to arrange things for their Big Day from their base in New York City, especially in a place neither of their families call home. Though originally from Tirupur (I have some fond memories of covering a wedding there once), Ranjith is Bombay bred, while Pallavi was raised in homey Nagpur until she spread her wings to reach out for Pilani from where there was no looking back. All of her immediate family seem intellectually heavy, with her sister practicing as a pediatrician in London.

The Sangeeth, Haldi and the Hindu ceremony was held at Pearls Oceanique, the Catholic service at a nearby church and the reception at the spectacular seaside lawns at Kenilworth Hotel.

And, it doesn’t matter how many hours of high-octane brain power is poured into the arrangements. The bride is heavily invested in it all till the last minute, and the rainbow of emotions that wash over her would be in plain view at the threshold of each event. I have been witness to it several times when capturing her dressing herself. This time was no exception, but Pallavi had it all orchestrated perfectly. The only time she breathed easy, I suspect, is when she stepped onto the dance floor before the curtains came down on her wonderful wedding.

I received a lovely testimonial from them after they viewed the slideshow:

“The actual wedding moments passed so quickly, that we didn’t even realize the different moving parts of the same function. Your photos have captured all the important moments – not just us, but also the immediate family members and other guests. We are both so glad that you could be a part of our wedding and capture these moments, which seemed so short-lived in reality, but will stay with us forever though these beautiful memories!

Warm Regards,
Pallavi and Ranjith”

Here are a few of my favorites from the wedding.

It’s always very satisfying to discover that people I work with are happy with my pictures and albums. I have been getting several testimonials the past few months. Most couples have busy schedules to wrestle with each day, so it’s customary to receive a one-liner or even a text message on my cellphone about their feedback. But a few of them come really well-worded and I could live off each for the whole month, particularly since they were originally unsolicited. I thank them so much for this.

Here they are – raw and unedited – with an accompanying picture from their wedding.

Natasha and Gautham:

“Shashi is truly a remarkably talented & passionate photographer. He did an amazing job of capturing our Hindu/Christian wedding beautifully. We loved his work and are very happy with the pictures which we will treasure forever. Shashi enjoys his occupation and shows it by ensuring that all his clients have a memorable experience. He is professional, easy to work with and his talent for catching those perfect moments shows in every picture. Our wedding pictures came out better than we could have ever imagined! The funny thing is that during our wedding I barely knew where he was at the time! Looking at the pictures now still surprises me at how he got some of the shots. What I loved most is that Shashi’s pictures are so unexpected and not your “typical Indian wedding” pictures. This is exactly what we wanted- for our day to be captured in a unique and beautiful manner & Shashi went above and beyond our expectations.Thank you!” – Natasha

Suma and Karthik:

“The reality of choosing a photographer, is that essentially, you’re putting your memories in someone else’s hands (or eyes). We wanted photos that forty years from now, we could share with our grand kids and have them feel like they were a part of those very special few days.

We’re over the moon with our photos, and more importantly, we are so thankful Shashi was our photographer. We know that in fourty years, when our grand kids look through our photos, it’ll almost be like they were there.” – Suma

Pallavi and Ranjith:

“Dear Sashi,

Warm Regards,
Pallavi and Ranjith”

Manisha and Vijit:

“Thanks much for the photos… they look spectacular. We are very excited about them – and have looked at them a few times already.”

I admire your work and I will continue to follow it on your blog. I have been getting a lot of requests for your contact information from friends and family who have seen these pictures – I have been directing them to your website with lots of positive feedback.” – Vijit

Madhuri and Rajesh:

“…thank you so much for the pictures. They are wonderful and I am happy to have these as the memory of a fun-filled wedding.”“Thanks again for making this so memorable for us. We are happy to recommend your work to any of our friends who’re looking for a photographer.”

“The album is beautiful – great selection of pictures.” – Madhuri

Nidhi and Subbu:

“[the wedding pictures] are phenomenal, we really loved them. It had all the elements that we always wanted in the artistic photographs – the capturing of candid moments, color, subtlety, tone and grace. Thank you for capturing and creating these lovely pictures.” – Nidhi

Shruti and Aravind:

“And yes, it’s been great working with you… the spectacular photographs, the awesome album…. truly a delight!” – Aravind

Evert and Chandra:

I got a lovely handwritten letter of appreciation from them after the albums and other deliverables were handed over. To say that I was tickled pink is to put it mildly. I reached back thanking them for such emotional labor.

Nikky and Pramod:

“…its the best work seen so far :) … Every one is v v happy and v mailed almost everyone we knw and the response tht vr getting from even frm people abroad is just toooo good thank u so much…” – Pramod

Sora and Shariq:

“Thanks for the hard work on this. I have a fair idea what goes into getting pictures up to this standard!”

“Thank you for your hard work and technical brilliance on this…” – Shariq

Richa and Abhishek:

“How much I thank god for sending you to document our wedding moments .. You did an excellent job !!”

“I am really happy with the work you have done for us. Outstanding it is :)” – Richa

Aparna and Karthik:

“Thank you for the work you have put in.We were really excited to see the pictures.Eventhough,delayed nice job done. Aparna & karthik also expressed there happiness about the outcome.Now that I have mailed to many of my relatives,I am expecting some feedbacks.” – Karthik’s father, Mr. Nagesh

Wedding and reception at Bangalore

Testimonial: “[the wedding pictures] are phenomenal, we really loved them. It had all the elements that we always wanted in the artistic photographs – the capturing of candid moments, color, subtlety, tone and grace. Thank you for capturing and creating these lovely pictures.”

Subbu, among those born with a smile, was referred to me by my good friend and fellow photographer, Raghuram Ashok. He contacted me in October to have his wedding to Nidhi covered, the culmination of a couple of years of getting close after meeting each other at a mutual friend’s gathering.

With siblings from either side already having been formally paired up, this final wedding in their families dripped with filial bonding. The scale was limited to people who mattered; they felt no pressure to impress peers nor invited judgement from everyone involved.

I do not use telephoto lenses in my work (which attracts attention and suspicion), and hence work close to people, typically being a few feet away from them. I photographed with a contended heart, following the couple around on the dias in company of their parents and cousins to whom they naturally warmed up to. As I told them later on, the rhythm of colors offered was lovely: a blue-black background against rich brown flesh tones, flooded with warm tungsten light adding to a very dramatic contrast. And, I sought to highlight them in the pictures.

Nidhi and Subbu arrived looking light and classy at their reception, held at a massive outdoor auditorium at the RSI Grounds that was let out to Nidhi’s father, a Navy veteran. After the festivities, we met again at Nidhi’s house for tea and to gather a few pictures with her parents.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding. I have picked a lot more pictures than I usually include in my posts, simple because I liked all of them. :-)

Wedding at the Bangalore Palace, Bangalore
Reception at the Race Course, Mysore

Mid-November, 2011

Pramod approached me after attending his friend Tilak‘s wedding – which I covered last August – to have his big day captured. Though he happens to be a scion of the family that owns and operates the popular Bassapa Memorial (B.M.) Hospital in Mysore and has traces of royal blood coursing through him, he never once betrayed his background until a couple of days prior to the wedding when he filled me in on the events. His wife Nikky comes from an illustrious family too, her father being the well-know IAS officer, Mr. Chiranjeevi Singh. His gentle manners, saintly aura and a distinguished career in the civil service commands immediate attention and enduring respect from those around. I recall checking his collection of books while I was at his house to capture the mehndi – apart from the walls being carpeted with sketches from and about the past, his books were historical too. I was thrilled to find a couple by Barbara Tuchman – whoever takes her name these days, a sad irony about one who has herself traced the march of human folly across time. However, Sikhs in general are such lovely people to photograph – with the leonine bearing of their men and the lustrous beauty of their women – dainty or otherwise.

The scale of the wedding was high: the Maharaja of Mysore had a whole section of his palace in Bangalore arranged to accommodate the wedding guests while the reception was held on the open grounds of the race course in Mysore. But the formal affairs did not last more then ten minutes. Inspired by the poet Kuvempu’s rendition of it, the couple exchanged garlands and solicited blessings from their parents while the virtues of the union and the responsibilities that it brings along were being read out. No sooner did this end than the stage was charged upon by attendee after well-know attendee to bless the couple. Anil Kumble was the cynosure of all our eyes until the former prime minister Deve Gowda weighed in on the dias with his regal airs, dismissive of the lines that the mortals stood in to await their turn.

While at Mysore, I stayed at the lovely Windflower Spa that Pramod had very kindly set me in for the night. I’m not sure if they intend to charm visitors with their croaking frogs, hungry mongrels and tame geese that inhabit the campus, but lying down in their beach chairs by the poolside was refreshing indeed. The Metropole Hotel – which is administered by a think veneer of sophistication – was where I was driven to the next morning to cover Nikky having her makeup done. I have always enjoyed such settings – the air is charged with high expectations and you get to see the private side of the family that is otherwise hidden from the glare of society.

Later that day, we proceeded to Pramod’s mansion to witness the bride’s homecoming. While the building had a faithful replica of the Parthenon for it’s porch that took 4 years to erect, the massive granite-coated interiors were milled about by people focused upon delivering a warm welcome to the newlyweds. Relaxing after it all, the men bandied about that oldest of subjects – politics and governance. Only this time, the thoroughbreds were doing the talking. How I wanted to soak in on all of the details streaming in first-hand. But, I had my job to do.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.

As 2011 fades away, it’s time to review some of the good times I have had at weddings the past year, which marked a definite shift in the character of my images – I tried to fit in as much context into them as possible. As mentioned in the report I wrote about my approach to wedding photography, the elements that make up a good image are (hat tip to Jeff Ascough):

Too often, wedding photographers survey the field of action with a lens that’s narrower than the normal angle of view in people. With the aperture wide open, they aim to draw a tight depth-of-field boundary around the antics of the main players at a wedding – the smile of the bride, the wistful look of the parents, decorated body-parts and gleeful interactions with friends. It’s a lot of fun to capture them, but to me, they aren’t “moments”. They are devoid of structure and story, only fanciful enough to hold one’s attention due to the simple subjects focused upon against a bokehed background.

All through the year, I have been deliberate enough to include some context surrounding such happenings, i.e. to add more information to the image in the hope of making it into a moment. That has entailed extensive usage of wider focal lengths (24mm to 35mm). And, the more information you hope to get into your image, the more work you need to do to get the exposure, the composition and the texture of light across subjects right to make such images work. The color balance gets whacked due to highly saturated, directional lights that gets used at weddings and receptions, the sharpness does not stay even across the picture and extraneous objects serve to dampen the impact of the image. To get all of these elements to work together requires patience and a deliberate mode of shooting; one cannot show up at a wedding and machine-gun it all – that is, taking thousands of pictures of things around you in the hope of getting a few good ones. You’d need to judge the flow of light, the placements of subjects and anticipate something interesting to happen within that framework to capture a moment.

This weeks image is a case in point. I could have used a telephoto lens to focus on any one of the subjects to get a passable picture, but including all of their reactions and forming a workable composition where the heads form a polygon along which the eye darts across the surface of the picture is what makes this image work. Anyone who has a feel of Marathi weddings knows exactly what’s being captured here – the ukhane of the groom in which he takes the wife’s name in a humorous couplet. The body movements of the bride and the groom convey their state of mind – you know the groom is trying to one-up her and she’s plenty surprised at the attempt. Everyone is cracking up at the joke and it’s fun all around. The light gives it a three-dimensional quality. I could not have taken this photograph had I not stood back to observe the congregations of people and anticipated the coming event.

I currently have six weddings in the post-processing pipeline, and it is possible that I might have a few in there that would better represent this mindset of mine at weddings. But, this picture has satisfied me since the time I took it in June and here it is on my blog now.

I’m excited at the possibilities of such an approach and have some interesting weddings lined up in 2012 to refine it further. We’ll see how things progress.

Have a happy new year.

Wedding and Reception at Mumbai

Mid-October, 2011

Shariq’s father reached out to me a couple of months before the wedding to have me document his son’s union with Sora, a second-generation Korean-American. About three years ago, I covered Shabari’s wedding at the grounds of the homey Dattaguru Housing Society in Mumbai; it was her father who had me referred to Shariq’s family.

Dattaguru is one of those leafy, old-world neighborhoods that wall-in quaint two-storey cottages on either side of leafy promenades that snake all through the society. The crushing bustle of the city leaves no traces within it, built to look like a movie set with street after street of glinting facades, sun-dappled balconies, rustling trees and tweeting birds. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to imagine sanguine faces behind each of those windows, only too happy to serve you some iced tea over a warm bed and a good book. Needless to say, I was delighted to be back there on assignment.

Professionally, Shariq applies a steadying hand to cross-continental economic imperialism, making sure ambitious moves at gaining allies through mergers and acquisitions do not turn unwieldy. Sora holds her own with a graduate degree from Columbia. They met in Jaipur for the first time, and their courtship continued around the world with Sora living in New York and Shariq in London, culminating in their Indian celebrations at Mumbai.

Though her parents could not make it to the events due to the care needed by her aged father, Sora was remarkably open to the demands of the social order of Indian marriages, with its heavy emphasis on conformity with tradition. The Siddiqui family – in classy assemblage from around the world – cushioned her tender bearings all through.

I also caught up with Shabari’s dad, Mr. Milind, who had some good words to share about my work. Her mother very kindly invited me in for the night, a tempting offer that I hope to make good of the next time I’m in there.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.

Wedding and Reception at Basavanagudi, Bangalore

Early-August, 2011

Karthik reached out to me a couple of months before his wedding to have me document it. The request came from, what is by now typical, a couple based overseas who wanted to be wedded among their extended family and friends in India. They both being Smartha Brahmins, a varna that my wife belongs to, I had a good idea about the main threads of the ceremonies that take place on and around the day of the wedding.

Though Suma was born and raised in Canada by her immigrant parents, I was struck by how Indian she is. She speaks perfect, unaccented Kannada, carries a saree admirably and shows obvious deference to customs with none of the puerile, self-conscious bearing that I’ve known so many in my own social circle, being only recent immigrants to the West, evince. At a meeting with Karthik and her a couple of days before the wedding, she told me about the bevy of opportunities that she had, no doubt with heavy parental influence, to get exposed to the Hindu way in her homeland, and one look at her relatively orthodox mother is enough to see truth in that statement. I only wish more such kids grow up with sides of their character sympathetic to our mores; the mindless commercialization of everything from intellect to soul that the West celebrates cannot run it’s course for too long.

While Suma works through her weekdays as as a Health & Safety Coordinator in California, Karthik, a native of Bangalore who moved out to the U.S. for an advanced technical degree, is a hardware engineer at a well-known firm that manufactures solid-state electronic equipment. Characteristically mild and good-tempered – who also does not cluck at rituals – he played along to the cadence of the priests.

It must have been a poignant day for Suma’s parents, having gotten married at the very hall more than two decades ago, and now having to let go of their daughter at the same venue.

I must here add a word about the wedding planners that Suma chose to orchestrate her big day. Scarcely have I seen young women, barely out of college, work as hard as they did – with one of the three on the job at any time. If you ever want to host an event in Bangalore, you should contact them at 3 Productions. Sowmya and Ritika, who spearhead the firm, surely go the extra mile to accommodate one’s ideas, be it classy staging, streaming the event on the Internet or decorations.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.

Wedding and Reception at J. P. Nagar, Bangalore

Early-July, 2011

Karthik’s father, Mr. Nagesh, contacted me about a month ahead of his wedding to have me cover the event. My good friend Raghuram, himself a wedding photographer now based in San Francisco and who was first contacted for the assignment, referred me instead.

The Sankethi subcaste is known to deliver people of formidable intellect into the professions, and Karthik fits that stereotype pretty well. A computer networking engineer, he is now based in Dallas after gathering his Masters degree from the neighboring university. A mild, good-tempered young man, who bears an excellent character among his family and is deeply respectful of the traditions, he handed his obedience over to the tender mercies of the priests across the dense rituals, ceremonies and symbolic gestures that packed the day. Aparna, being homey but effervescent, also fit the stereotype of a genteel Indian bride pretty well.

And, I had a good time chatting with a old grizzly of the wedding photography business, weighing in on the dias with his 20 years of experience. Such conversations seldom venture into the technicals, hovering around selected autobiographical accounts of each other’s time in the industry.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.

It was the kind of wedding I enjoy covering: a clean structure to the events, lovely people, an emotive couple, chatty fellow photographers and a carte blanche to shoot what I want. You are treated like family, get plenty of room to think about your compositions, and begin to appreciate the stories of dogsbodies who need to show up at weddings with a camera everyday just to put food on the table.

Sheetal, who’s wedding I documented two years ago in Pune, got in touch early this year about her sister Namrata’s wedding. And, having known her and her cheery husband Anupam to be a lovely, empathetic couple, I jumped at the opportunity. Like her sister, Namrata too is a doctor, as is her husband Nishant and his parents. Coming from a medical family myself, I approach anyone with such an education with innate respect.

Apart from the above factors, what really caused me to ease into the shoot was the expansive dias. Being offset from the guests by distance and height, very few of them busied themselves on it, thus giving me ample opportunities to swing around the seats of action and construct my compositions. The light was soft and diffused, causing my exposure values to remain almost static throughout. The play of light, compositions and the moments are all that I needed to focus on. I thoroughly enjoyed this trip to Thane.

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.