Wedding and Reception at Bangalore

Late December 2010

Here are three more favorites from the same wedding as the past two posts. The Christian ceremony was held at the huge Our Lady of Lourde’s Church and the Hindu one at the impressive Satya Sai Samskrutha Sadanam, both of them in Bangalore. The bride and groom have requested anonymity apart from these five photographs, and I would like to be respectful of it. I have chosen these pictures from the Christian section of the wedding, as there are plenty of those from traditional Hindu weddings around this blog.

As is my wont, all of them were taken under available lighting conditions, but a heavy dose of incandescent light from the videographer formed a component of it at times. It’s especially difficult to work around the altar with such light, as the source would be too close to the subjects causing any tonal variations on their faces or light colored dresses to be blown into regions of pale and blocky washes of yellow or white. In deference to the sanctity of the occasion, I cannot prod the videographer to dial down the intensity with a diffuser. The only option I have in such situations is to accept the harshness of such light and work with it.

I had a great time at this service. The bridesmaids looked gorgeous in their luminous red gowns; the radiant bride and groom delivered a textbook ceremony and their parents were classy enough to wrap every offering to their guests with lustrous paper and ribbons. The number and length of the ceremonies ensured that I work through about three times as many photographs as a typical wedding, and the bride was remarkably patient with me while I pushed all of the post-processing over the finish line. It’s a great pleasure to interact and work with such sensitive people.

This photograph was another one made under conditions identical to those of the previous post. The makeup artist had just finished lining the bride’s eyes and stepped away a bit to make sure his judgement was sure.

Daylight is the most delicious of the several kinds of light available to a photographer – Irving Penn

Anyone who has spent many hours photographing people in dark dungeons that sometimes pass for the dais at wedding halls or chancels at churches can appreciate the above observation, especially when a videographer isn’t around to split the darkness into severe bands of light that stab any tender moment to death. Warm directional light, with it being diffuse enough to ferret out the grid of tones that cover a scene, is daylight at its most sumptuous and I never want miss a chance to exploit it.

This photograph of the bride about to submit herself to her beautician is one I took a few hours before the church service. With wonderful winter light of late December streaming through life-sized windows of her hotel room, I planted myself behind the action to capture any slice of it that looked promising. I had a clear view of the mirror that framed it all so I could be as unobtrusive as possible, which is something I lay a great deal of emphasis upon. Less than 5 percent of all of the photographs I take at a wedding contain any kind of staging directed my me. If I’m patient and observant enough, people, events and the drama around me would grant opportunities for photographs which tell stories that would be far superior to anything I can artificially summon.

The geometry of the moment, the mottled tones that wash over the picture, the expectant expressions of the bride and the makeup artist together with framing by the mirror makes the image.

Wedding and Reception at Gurgaon, Haryana

Mid-February 2011

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.

Wedding at the Guruvayur Temple, Guruvayur

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

Shruti and Aravind were married in the atrium of the Guruyaur Temple at a ceremony that lasted under 20 minutes (though the post-nuptial events carried on for a bit longer). To those like my wife and I who have been on the receiving end of priests who bloviated their way through interminable rituals that often seemed full of little else than technicalities, and often without empathy on such an important occasion, such a practice would be welcomed as a refreshing alternative to their tyranny. I was often surprised at how restive a Malayalee friend of mine would get when he attended a long-drawn-out affair upcountry, but I can now make sense of it. A brief but forcefully expressive wedding holds just as much charm as a protracted one that’s well orchestrated.

Both Shruti and Aravind work in electronic media, with she hosting “Tech Talk” on CNBC while Aravind, after being on air in his greener years, plans and directs the daily programming at Times Now. We had been in touch since October to pin down a working arrangement, and it was such a pleasure to document their events. It did involve a fair bit of travel, but I found my passage through Kochi, Aluva (where I had covered a wedding about a year back), Thrissur and Trivandrum among the locals through ordinary surface transport a lot more alluring than the sanitized world of air travel. And, Kerala must be the only state in South India where men of even ordinary stock are consistently fine-looking.

This must be the first wedding I’ve covered where the bride made herself up. I showed at her door early that day to find her hunched over a mirror, running brushes and liners around her face with no parlor lady in sight! My surprise, which must have been pretty apparent, was dismissed with a cheery remark of regular occurrence of such sessions in her line of work. It then dawned on me; she must be an old hand at appearing presentable under tight schedules and situations a lot more stressful.

Aravind is the classical perfectionist – a quality which could also be sourced from his profession. He likes to develop a feel for what a project ought to deliver, and directs the energies of people to manifest it while making sure not to push his agenda onto them. The design of the wedding album, for example, took the better part of a month with just it’s cover having passed through half a dozen iterations, all in an effort to surprise Shruti with it. I can only imagine the degree of emotional labor he would bring to his job to arrive at the daily schedule for Times Now; he would surely be an asset to Arnab Goswami, who sadly could not attend the wedding due to him being the face of the channel.

I cannot end without commenting a little on Aravind’s home in Trivandrum. Set in upscale Kowdiar, the homey mansion was constructed by his paternal grandfather, with stately columns plugged into the facade, arched doorways leading to airy rooms, cool red-oxide paint to walk upon, and a thread at the gate to tug a clapper against it’s (literal) calling-bell. His father is a prolific painter of oils, to which the walls show plenty of evidence, while his brother, a practicing lawyer, is also a voracious reader who’s come up with a 1000-page tome on the literary use of lawyers as characters in works of fiction. He reviews books for Amazon.com and also has an autographed copy of one of Jeffery Archer’s novels. This family would be any intellectual’s delight.

Here are my favorites from the wedding.

Wedding and Reception at Chennai

Testimonial: See last picture in the below series.

Though I possess only a smattering of Tamil, I pounce upon the prospect of documenting weddings in Tamil Nadu when I get an invite. The classical ethos of the state, saturated with centuries of divine worship of Shiva and satellite deities, lends a sublime hue to one’s experience in it.

Evert and Chandra were married in a traditional manner in Chennai. The leafy residential neighborhood of Anna Nagar, where Evert’s family resides, is always a delight to hang around in, while Chandra’s folks stay in the distant suburb of Anakaputhur. I was glad to avoid schlepping around the city within a suffocating bubble of moisture after Chandra offered to lug me around in his car. And, as is the wont of the spiritually minded, it was a delight to behold the pleasant, welcoming dispositions of the elders, a refreshing change from the stuffy riffraff that one encounters in “progressive” societies.

Both Evert and Chandra themselves are based abroad, she having gotten much of her graduate education in New York while he being engaged as a chemical engineer at a big-ticket aviation company in Alberta, Canada. Chandra has a sincere, lilting voice that’s sweet on the ears while the character of the wedding rode along the effervescent spirits of Evert.

We had been in touch since May to hammer out a working arrangement. The couple even had a website developed to share views about each other and to rein in the shower of wishes from friends. We worked on getting such content into the coffee-table album, which was originally designed to showcase only the photographs taken at their homey wedding.

To top it all, I got a 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. “It’s such gratitude – rendered very scarce by the corporatist societies that dominate almost all exchanges of value – that drives me in my work. No official recognition can match the impact of such an open communication – it shows that I have made myself useful to somebody.”

Here are some of my favorites from the wedding.

The hand written testimonial: :-)

Venue: Cross Country

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

Madhuri and Rajesh were married in a truly cross-country wedding last November. The mehendi and sangeeth were held at Madhuri’s residence in Mumbai, the muhurtam and pertinent satellite events at the swanky Taj Kovalam and the reception at the chic Westin Mumbai Garden City (where I beheld the stunning cityscape from the 27th floor!). The couple and I were in touch since June last year to discuss the logistics and modalities of the coverage.

Both Madhuri and Rajesh hold degrees from popular institutions in India and work in the finance industry in New York. Being more collected of the two, Rajesh applies a steading hand to his wife’s effervescent personality, which is very obviously sourced from her mother. “Auntie” is herself of the modern, emancipated stock that makes her look almost regal in the company of regulars her age, while “Uncle” is only slightly more restive than his son-in-law. Rajesh descends from a more conservative Tamil background, his parents being firmly bound by the associated moral code.

The atmosphere at the wedding was fantastic throughout – the girly fun at the sangeeth, the stately awning just off the shore that staged the wedding at the crack of dawn and the sparkling presence of the couple at the reception with each guest pampered with a lavish dole of cuisines. Our communications were always warm and I covered the events with a contented heart.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding.

Wedding and Reception at The MIG Club, Mumbai

Late December 2010

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

“We received the album this morning. It was absolutely gorgeous!! I went through it a few times and still have not had my fill. I have been showing it off all day to friends – everybody loved it. Thanks for the great work. We both really loved it. We have been reliving those moments through your photographs – and am sure will continue to do so for many years to come. “

Getting to the venue bought back warm memories of Dhanashree’s wedding to Devdutt I covered almost exactly two years ago, and she has been kind enough to refer me to her friends since. Vijit, who is acquainted with Dhana, and I began our discussions in August and I was very excited to come over to Mumbai to cover his wedding. Like so many couples I work with, they are based abroad and have flown down to India to wed among their close family and friends.

I got to Vijit’s house the day before the wedding for a pre-nupital ceremony, and it was a huge surprise to gather that we shared common educational and vocational experiences. He works for one big-ticket computer networking company while his wife Manisha works for another, and I happen to have served under both those banners in India for quite a while! We got to know each other pretty well after that.

Back to the ceremonies. Vijit and Manisha are a young, crunchy couple who do not shy away from being expressive around people. They have known each other for some years now, having met as students in the U.S., and have settled into a comfortable niche in each other’s hearts. They even launched a website to share their history, information about their wedding and to handle it’s logistics.

The main factor that makes me enjoy covering a wedding is the people, and they were fantastic in this one. Vijit shares a great rapport with his parents, and I don’t think I have ever caught father and son pecking each other quite their way before. Manisha looked stunning sitting by the window on the morning of the wedding, being readied as a bride. The warm, directional light lent her a glow that was fabulous to behold.

The wedding ceremonies were held in a closed hall, but the sources of light generated interesting patterns of light and shadow that added a lot of drama to the events.The couple looked great enough to be mistaken for models posing for a magazine photo-shoot when we tried to gather some interesting pictures in a swanky hotel after the wedding!

Here are some of my favorite images from the wedding.

When it comes to documentary photography in color, it hardly get’s better than Steve McCurry’s work. While he’s best known for the captivating photograph of an Afghan girl, his mastery of composition – so important in color photographs if one has to get beyond a literal representation of the subject that a snapshot provides – is what makes you savor each photograph of his.

A telling example is his recent work in Cuba. Every photograph in that collection makes your eyes wander around the picture in an attempt to resolve the shapes and colors into a story. There’s much to see and a lot to feel. The creamy, saturated colors add to the rhythm.

Over the past year, he has dished out some advice to those who would like learn from him. Here are some excerpts from his blog posts:

July 17: “I’m often asked about what advice I could give to young photographers. I would recommend studying the work of Elliott Erwitt, my colleague at Magnum Photos who has had an illustrious career in fine art, editorial, and corporate advertising photography.
Elliott has done it all – from creating films including The Glass Makers of Herat (1977) to exhibitions in London, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Zurich and New York. He is also coming out with two new books this year.”

While focusing on the assignment, it’s important to understand the big picture and how it will contribute to your personal archive.

Also, read this entry from the blog where he talks about how he chased the monsoons in India, with some photographs of himself and that which he took.

Here’s a movie made of still images by Steve, with sound. Beautiful photographs shot in color and lovely font for the subtitles.

And, look at these wonderful portraits in Afghanistan. He embedded himself with the people and traveled for long times with them to document the conflict. Apart from the work ethic that is admirable, his portraits are so beautiful even when made in as ravaged a country as that.