Looking for the best Mumbai wedding photographers? We get you up close and personal to Anand Rathi of Reel and Frames and his team. The phenomenal team that captured the ‘everyday phenomenal’ couple Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja’s wedding!
Whether you’re looking for a Mumbai wedding photographer or simply the best in India, you can’t get better than Reels and Frames. Here we bring you everything from their journey and photography style, to their top tips and advice for couples!
Did you choose Candid Wedding Photography or did it choose you?
Neither! To say art was my calling will be exaggerating things. I guess, what drew me towards photography (initially) was that I could decode photography in terms of its technical building blocks for eg. rule of thirds, leading lines etc.
Coming from an engineering background, perceiving things in such manner came naturally! It was only later that I began to see beyond the technical aspects and that is when photography truly captured my interest.
And then, wedding photography happened very late for me. I started as a nature/environment photographer shooting landscapes and people in my college campus in New York during my MBA days. Soon, my classmates noticed and requested me to ‘put’ them in the pictures!
Given most of my classmates were married (very typical in an MBA school in USA), this was my first taste of ‘couple shoots’. When I came back to India, I kept working as a treasury manager by the weekdays and a hobby photographer by the weekends, until one day when a friend asked me to ‘carry’ my camera at his wedding!
I clicked some photos and the response was phenomenal! I started taking up more weddings and the weekend warrior regime began. One fine day, I took the leap of faith and jumped into photography full time and the rest is history (in making!)
What is unique about your photography style? How do you stay authentic to your style?
Our photography style is what I’ll call ‘environmental portraits’ where a lot of focus is also to capture a sense of where the subject is.
For eg. if we are doing a prewedding shoot in the cherry blossoms, we’ll show the trees in their full glory along with the couple.We stay true to our style by taking a step back and observing where we are first, before we start clicking.
What, according to you, are the wedding photography trends for 2019?
Less poses, more emotions! Everyone is done with over the top poses and ‘statue’ moments. Clients are appreciating true photojournalism more and more and we believe this will continue.
As a wedding photographer, what do you focus more on – moments or people?
A healthy mix of both!
As a company, we believe that even a ‘group portrait’ or a ‘family portrait’ can be done tastefully. And it should be done tastefully, it is often the family portrait that makes it to walls.
How important is post production editing to you? Do Indian clients understand and appreciate the effort between raw and edited pictures?
In the digital space, sometimes the difference between a good picture and a great picture can just be the ‘edit’. Even more so in video. Clients do understand the effort, especially when they receive the final pictures.
What is more challenging – videography at weddings or candid photography? What’s new in wedding videography?
While each has its own challenge, shooting videos comes with a couple of added challenges. Shooting video is like clicking 25 pictures in one second, each one of which has to be perfect.
Secondly, video requires a lot more editing effort, because we as editors try to weave the story together using numerous permutations and combination after reviewing the footage. And therein lies both the challenge and the fun!
What do you love capturing more – preweddings or weddings?
Both equally. Preweddings are an ice-breaker with the couple and a fantastic opportunity to shoot in a controlled environment. While weddings provide a plethora of raw emotions and are spontaneous.
Three questions a couple must ask before booking a wedding photographer?
- How would you define your style?
- How can we combine your style and our personality type seamlessly?
- What are some of the things you would suggest to help us get the best from your services?
Your top tips for couples to be?
- Manage your time well during the wedding days.
- Don’t micro manage the event details.
- Try and let your hair down and forget the first point while you are at it!
Which is your favorite wedding from last year?
Sonam Kapoor’s wedding was definitely a party to remember!
Your most memorable couple ever?
Honestly, I won’t be able to pick one. So many of them have become friends and its hard to chose!
Which is that one location/destination you’d love to shoot at?
Umaid Bhawan palace, Jodhpur is one place that we love going back to again and again.
Have you ever faced any last minute crisis at a shoot and how did you overcome it?
All the time. Shooting events is like firefighting!
We’ve dealt with issues from kids breaking our drones, to camera equipment being stolen, to our camera getting drenched in unexpected rains! Fortunately, we have a policy of carrying backup of everything. Plus, we are a big team so this allows for last minute replacements.
When you are doing couple shoots, most people are shy/nervous in front of the camera. How do you make sure your clients are comfortable?
We try and think of ourselves as friends of the couple (friends with a really fancy camera!). The chats that follow put the couple at ease and post that it just flows.
Not all clients are creative or bold. How do you manage to create a balance between your creative instincts & clients’ demands?
Ensuring that clients chose us for our style and not our ‘brand value’ is the first step to achieving coherency.
The second step is having a detailed discussion with the client on how they want their wedding photos to look and trying to figure out how we can achieve that within our style.
With so much traveling, how do you manage a work – life balance?
That department is a bit of a stinker!
Last year I took about 105 flights and this year 15 will be done before the first month ends. But when work is passion and passion is work, who can complain?
There you go! That was our heart to heart chat with leading Mumbai wedding photographer Anand Rathi of Reels & Frames, that brings you everything you need to know about them. Love them? Let us know why in comments below…
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