From soft, romantic him-and-her shots to quirky photo booths and cheeky posers, wedding photography has evolved significantly over the last ten years. SUPRIYA RAMESH tells you more
For decades, wedding photography mainly consisted of cliched portraits of the bride and the groom, sitting stiffly on gilded chairs, flanked by their family or wedding guests. Recently, however, that has changed and drastically. Wedding photography has reached a whole new level. Gone are the days of shy brides and impassive grooms. It is all about bold and beautiful poses now.
Amitoj Marwah, a photographer based out of Dehradun, who has been in this field for the past 20 years, says, “The modern-day bride has taken an old wedding tradition and given it a update, which allows her to express her own personality without feeling restrained to certain customs. Brides today prize comfort as much as tradition.”
Couples no longer posed photos for gilded wedding albums. They want records of every moment of emotion, drama and colour that defines the great Indian wedding. In many ways, wedding photography is now having a cinematic moment.
There is a rise in the popularity of artsy videos. In pursuit of capturing the essence of the moment, there has been a change in wedding styles ranging from gardenia to beachside.
A photoshoot is not just limited to the day of the wedding. There are pre and post-wedding shoot, bridal shoot, couple shoot with various themes and styles and even trailer for the wedding film. Shooting aesthetic wedding videos with realistic storylines just like an impressively shot film is a thing in this day and age.
Kapil Sharma, the co-founder of Delhi-based firm Divine Mantra, which majorly focuses on destination weddings and has covered 35 countries, says that many pre-wedding shoots are story-based now.
He recalls, for instance, a recent shoot of a pilot couple. It was shot in Iceland, he says, adding that the whole theme was planned, keeping in mind their profession. “They dressed up in their uniforms and were photographed near an abandoned aeroplane,” he says.
Access to global trends and information helps too. Today’s customers and photographers are more clued into different sorts of editing the lighting, theme, and other aspects of the wedding video would look like. Wedding blogs, wedding magazines and YouTube videos are a big source of information and inspiration for couples to decide their wedding theme and wedding film storylines.
Weddings aren’t season or home-town specific anymore; it is about going beyond the ordinary. Destination weddings have been a trending category in wedding photography for the past several years. Photographers take great delight in shooting in exotic and unexpected locations.
“Shooting at different venues is fun, and you learn about different cultures,” says Sharma, adding that more and more families now prefer to get away from their hometown with a smaller, tight-knit circle of loved ones.
Social media has become an important part of everybody’s life. It has also become an essential part of wedding photography. Facebook and Instagram are great resources for finding affordable venues inside or outside India.
Photographers embed the culture and lifestyle of the location into the wedding photographs to make them more vibrant.
“We pulled in the concept of Tik-Tok and Instagram reels into wedding videos, and it has helped us reach the masses in huge numbers. Social media helps in spreading different ideas with changing trends too,” Marwah says.
Technology has transformed the landscape as a whole. Thanks to advances in it, once camera-shy people have become posers, who don’t hang back when it comes to getting clicked and enjoy every moment of their wedding.
Steadicams and drones have taken the limelight in shooting a wedding. “Earlier photographers had to hire a crane to shoot incredible shots. Now, drones have made things very easy; their size makes it possible for photographers to fly the drones in areas that would never have been possible with a crane,” Sharma says.
Marwah believes in getting on friendly terms with the couple and their family to feel comfortable with him on their wedding day. “Communicating with your couples prior to the shoot is very important and helps you in knowing their vision for photographs,” he says.
The gradual lifestyle change has brought out the importance of wedding culture worldwide, allowing photographers to capture the moments through an innovative lens.
“Wedding stories are the most precious memories that are captured for a lifetime by a photographer. Capturing emotions that you want to preserve is what I have understood from my experience, the emotional moments of the family and friends and tears of joy that are shown with smiles,” says Marwah.