‘Wedding receptions’ – Are they meaningful or enjoyable…!

I had an opportunity to participate a couple of wedding receptions during this week , not as a photographer but as a guest. Indian weddings are becoming more lavish and crowded than before. People prefer to participate in receptions mainly because it is held during a comfortable time, and it extends till late evenings ..... sometime till 11.00pm. Unlike participating in weddings, you have a Indian Stretchable Time (IST) for receptions.

In those days, receptions were generally organized when the wedding is celebrated in a different place. But now, weddings are made simple to make receptions grand. Well, the purpose of a wedding reception is mainly to meet the couple, their family and few common friends but I found in the recent receptions, that the purpose is to just to mark the attendance and part a gift in the hands of the couple even without seeing their face and talking to them properly. We go with a preoccupied mind and want to leave the place as early as possible.

It is also strange to see people rushing and pushing each other when they want to meet the couple. Unfortunately none of us like to go in a 'queue' and wait for our turn patiently. Some times there are few ‘smart guests’ who gain entry from the exit platform; not minding lot others waiting in the other end. These ‘smart guests’ confuse the whole event and there is a mess of actions happening in the center of the reception dais. The hosts from the both families feel delicate to handle such 'smart guests'. They also make the job of the photographers and video personnel confusing. The couples miss out the opportunity to share their joy with the people around and many important group pictures are missed because of this confusion.

Remember, all these things happen and get over in about half an hour (you can call this as 'peak hour of a wedding reception') and after this confusion the reception platform is relatively free; and by then most of them had gone to the dinning area to create the same confusion in the buffet dinner also.

There are few unanswered questions which remain in my mind every time I go for wedding receptions….

1. Why cannot we understand the meaning of a wedding reception and plan a time for it?
2. Why cannot we really have the heart and mind to wish the couple?
3. Why cannot we follow the discipline of standing in queue and wait for our turn?
4. Why cannot we value others time and follow the basic rules and avoid the ‘smart shortcuts’?
5. Why cannot we be civilized enough to behave properly in a gathering of selected invitees?

These questions are almost endless…

Finally for the organizers of the wedding,

1. Why cannot we stop the noisy (I wonder if the noise pollution control norms of ‘so many decibels’ applies to these music/noise troupes) ‘so called light music’, playing a great havoc in a small gathering where we want to talk to our fellow guests and friends?
2. Why do you call people and make them just sit and close their mouth and ears..?
3. How can we speak to some one when we cannot hear them in the noise of music?

Let us make our life and relationships meaningful.

- KL.Raja

The most precious moment of a South Indian wedding.

Weddings are of course most important on everyone’s life. During a wedding, there are lot of events and ceremonies performed by the kith and kin of the couple. But there is always a climax for a wedding celebration… and that is called ‘Muhurtham’ (The groom tying the ‘Thali’ – ‘mangalsuthra’ around the neck of the bride) in south Indian weddings. It is this moment which is very precious in the couple’s life as they are declared officially and religiously as husband and wife. This moment may be compared to the exchange of wedding rings in western weddings.

The emotional content of these pictures are usually very high as it reflects the cultural values of the Indian weddings. The bride and her close relatives (the bride’s parents and grand parents) burst out in peak of emotions. I had captured the emotions of the brides and her fathers, collecting tears at the corner of their eyes during the 'muhurtham' in some of the weddings.

I saw the above expression (first picture) of the bride; while the groom ties the ‘Thali’ around her neck. She became excited, closed her eyes tightly and buried her head in between her legs and the photographers were not able to capture her face clearly. Well, even though the face of the bride is not clearly visible, I liked this picture. For me, the momentary expression and the body language is more important to tell about the mood of the occasion than showing her face. (Look at the ‘tongue biting’ expression of the groom also).

But the other photographer did wait to get the couple pose for a shot as tying the ‘Thali’ (the second picture). I never believe in such kind of ‘posed photos’ as they look very artificial and the looking into the camera with a framed expression is not exactly real and natural!

Let us capture the inner mood and expression of our subjects, especially in a wedding.

-KL.Raja

Temples are powerful…!

India is a country with thousands of temples with diversified architecture and cultural background. Indian temples can offer a feast to your camera and a travel photographer can have a lot of good shots. I get fascinated about temples and they are one of my favorite subjects when I travel. I love every bit of the sculptures and the great history behind every temple. Though I had visited most of the temples in India, I am more comfortable with my camera when I visit temples in Tamil Nadu.

For me, temples are more of a subject of photography than a place of worship. Well, what can you shoot when you are in a temple? Most of us obviously shoot the facade and the exterior of a temple. But there is a lot more to look into when you plan to shoot a temple with your camera. Well, a temple elephant, the corridor, the temple pond, children enjoying a dive into the pond, the typical attire and body language of the priests, the candid shots of the devotees and foreign tourists, the pillars and galleries with beautiful sculptures depicting the style and period of the kings and emperors who had built the temple are some of the fascinating scenes. The small vendors and the local transports are also some of the interesting subjects around a temple. The typical lifestyle of the people around the temple is also yet another beautiful subject for your cameras.

I had shot lot of the above subjects during my recent visit to Kancheepuram, known as a ‘temple town’ which is about 60km from Chennai. But I liked the late evening shot of ‘miniature cradles’ tied on a tree inside the temple. The childless couples believe that they will be blessed with children if they give an offering of ‘miniature cradle’. People across the globe have several beliefs about their life and a contemporary photojournalist shooting a temple should also document the popular beliefs of the people.

Get the pleasure of shooting temples and enjoy the unknown perspective of it.

- KL.Raja

Silence Speaks…!

I had been shooting a Christian wedding in Delhi on a fine winter afternoon. The old church looked too good for my camera and the light through the ornamental windows and doors made me go mad for available light photography. I always prefer to use available light as the main source where ever possible. As the evening was setting in, the light become fairly warm and soft and gave me some interesting shots depicting the mood of the event and location.

But the video personnel from Delhi were too conventional in their approach towards the wedding coverage. Despite me warning them, many times they were hitting me just in front with their powerful video light. Of course, I had also lost some of my good shots with an unexpected light flare in my lens.!. I found that there is no point in making them understand my problem. I decided to take advantage of the situation by getting some shots with the beautiful rim lights with a touch of gold. This is one such shot where I did use only the video light to tell the mood of the picture. Yes, I think even if I had used my powerful flash, I would have got only an average picture.

I liked the shot as it clearly tells the calm and emotional feel of the couple when they close their eyes in a prayer. The clear profile of the couple with glowing edges defined their purpose; and the light through the wedding bouquet made it even better. Though the picture looked very silent, it spoke a loud about my professional approach. Many times I find less is more than required..! Yes, less light here made the picture more than beautiful! Though I had to open the lens aperture in full to get the correct exposure, the resulting shallow depth of field made a special impact on the appearance of the groom in the picture. Events like weddings contain lot of moods and the available light makes it perfect in a photo journalistic style of wedding photography.

This particular wedding photo book contained lot of images like this and I must thank my ‘unknown friend’ who lit for these pictures freely with his video light.

- KL.Raja

Challenges of Indian Wedding Photography

Yes, unlike the western weddings, the weddings in India are very elaborate, with a lot of events and ceremonies. Most of the ceremonies are difficult to photograph and become a grand challenge to the photographer. Some times there may not be enough space to move around and people may not co-operate with the photographer. The events many times may not be happening as per the plan or time schedule. Photographers are not informed about the delay or change in the sequence of the happenings and they need to be always prepared for the make shift arrangement at any point of time. It means that, you are always expected to deliver some thing superlative even when your creativity is at stake.

When I was covering an important event in a most popular and famous church in Chennai a few days ago, the chief priest instructed our team not to move from a particular place. The place specified unfortunately was not a vantage point for the event to be covered. I requested him that we might be allowed to move around a limited area without disturbing the proceedings of the mass. But he bluntly argued saying that, “Our ceremonies and functions are more important than your photography”. Of course he was right, but then why we were there? Maybe he failed to understand that we were there to aesthetically document the whole proceeding…!

Sometimes the wedding couples do not give us the bare minimum time for spot wedding portraits though they afford to wait for hours to do the make-up and styling before they get ready. When they don’t even want to stand in front of a camera for a couple of minutes to do a neat wedding portrait, then what is the point of spending so much of time to get ready?. Remember a good wedding portrait at the location immediately after the wedding is very important as it is almost impossible to do it again afterwards.

Many of us forget that the wedding pictures bring back the real memory of our wedding day, and a wedding photographer is an important person in a wedding, who has to be given enough time and facilities to make your wedding pictures look truly great!

Despite the constrains in Indian wedding photography scenario, I always try to explain my clients about the challenges of wedding photography and make them understand the importance of 'photography' in weddings. Nowadays, I am able to achieve the difference that I had always wanted. They respect my photography because they believe that our team is capable of projecting their wedding in terms of International style and standards.

- KL.Raja

Indian wedding photography in International style

Can Indian weddings be photographed the way the international weddings are done? This was my question in my mind for a long time and now I have an answer in my website, www.chennaiweddingphotography.com

The approach of Indian wedding photography was to just document the events in a sequence. Now I have clients who can probably understand that wedding photography is much more than that. I made it happened recently through some of my wedding assignments. Weddings are very important in everyone’s life. This is the first thing every wedding photographer must understand before he carries his camera to cover a wedding event. For me, Indian weddings are truly emotional and have great cultural values. The people, places, dresses, food, jewels and every thing is so much vital and a complete wedding photographer must try his best to reveal all these and above in his photos.

I have designed a special way of working for weddings. This is because of the prolific knowledge I earned being a news photographer, fashion photographer and most importantly – a people photographer. My wedding photo book will carry pictures with finer details of even small things including expressions of not only the couple but also the guests, relatives and friends. I give importance to shoot from different angles in an unconventional point of view. I do not dither to use different kinds of lenses and apertures to get a variable effect of perspective and depth of field. Some of the shots I tried with my 17 mm lens on my Canon IDs Mark II and Canon EOS 5D had come out splendid.

Of course Indian wedding clients do not allow you to do either rehearsals or wait for a photographer to give an important shot. I some times make it a point at least to meet the couple well in advance and brief them a bit about the need and preparations to bring out powerful pictures. I also visit the location of the wedding to understand the lighting and plan of the event lay-out. This gives me time to think about the suitable lighting and need for an extra length extension cables or slave triggers.

In fact, I spend more time in shooting the activities around the main event area when most of my photographer friends sink into the events and functions. There are clients interested in shots which speak about the silent happenings around the events. My shots are always not posed and this is what I specialize in my wedding and event photography assignments. I some times refrain from shooting people who spontaneously set themselves for a posed shot when they see me with a camera!. I simple say ‘sorry’, and move away with a smile. For me, in an event like wedding the original expression of the people is lost when they stare in front of a camera.

Though shooting Indian wedding is a greatest challenge, I propose to deliver and have delivered something very different to varying categories of clients who understand and cherish the art and technique of photography done in unrestrained working conditions.

- KL.Raja

No.. No….. No Flash …. Don’t kill the mood..!

Wedding photography is mostly done with the flash either directly or indirectly. This is true for most of the wedding events happening in the indoors where the available light is not there or it is very low. But there was an interesting but challenging demand by my client, where I was requested not to use the flash through out the function.

It was a ‘cocktail get together’ in the evening, following the mehandhi function in the afternoon. There were beautiful decorations and the entire hall, floor, ceiling and furniture were decorated in black & white. Surprisingly the dress code of the couple and the guest was also in black and white. Obviously, I also had attire matching the theme and the challenge is not that. Shooting the event with full of actions like dancing, cake cutting and partying without using the flash was not that easy. Imagine moving around with a tripod mounted camera on a dance floor in a dimmed light ambience.

Well ,in order to avoid the shift of colour and to match the theme black & white, I did decided to shoot in the black and white mode of my digital camera using high ISO settings – mostly in 800 or 1600. To my surprise the pictures were having minimum level of noise that of course revealed the mood of the event. The gentle blur in the pictures caused by the movement of the people and disco lights added the impact of action as well. The entire evening my flash took rest unusually.

I was there shooting for about three hours enjoying the mood and music not revealing myself as a photographer. Remember that part of the wedding photo book contained mostly black and white pictures

Did any of you have similar experience in your life?

- KL.Raja