If you were a couple in India getting married, even as recently as five years ago, the wedding photographer was picked by your parents. Invariably, he was someone your parents or extended family had used many times before and stuck to a time-tested template – capture every guest at the wedding, cover all of the rituals and put together an album that your parents then showed all their friends.
These days, wedding photography is a changed business. Couples are more aware of the photography services available outside India and want similar work here. This has created a new and exciting market. Over the past few years, a new set of photographers have come on to the scene. Willing to take risks (some of them quit their high-paying tech/consulting jobs), they are changing the face of Indian wedding photography – and doing a pretty good job!
Here is the first part (of a three part series) of our list (in no particular order) of the new-age wedding photographers in India.
Sephi Bergerson
Sephi moved to India in 2002 to be a documentary photographer. Along the way, Sephi started documenting Indian weddings influenced by his work in culture and travel. Sephi’s wedding images have changed the way Indian wedding photography. His impact on wedding photography in India is an inspiration for a whole new generation of young wedding photojournalists. Sephi now only does a handful of weddings a year and is based out of Goa.
Ramit Batra
Ramit graduated from in Mechanical engineering but quickly turned his animation, film-making and photography. In 2009, he started Ramit Batra {photography} where he combines his passion & technical skills to make for beautiful wedding pictures. Ramit is based out of Delhi.
Navdeep Soni
Navdeep is a Pune-based photographer whose style is non-intrusive documentary and artistic. He likes to shoot weddings, portraits, architecture and streets.
Arjun Kartha
Arjun Kartha is a professional photographer based in New Delhi, India. He is a “non-wedding” wedding photographer who brings with him a contemporary “off-beat” approach towards weddings in India. Arjun mostly works as a husband-wife team, and his wife Praerna (who brings her own brand of creativity and inspiration from her career in creative advertising) are documentary and candid wedding photography specialists, and use their own experiences from having got married one cold winter night by capturing tiny moments and memories which will last the couple a lifetime. They are Delhi based, but shoot weddings all over India and abroad. Arjun is also a category winner of the prestigious Kodak Wedding Photographer of the Year 2011 award.
Mahesh Shantaram
After leaving a desk-jop in Washington DC Mahesh went to study photography in Paris and returned to India in 2006. This is when he decided that wedding photography in India needed a new perspective and that’s exactly what he went on to go. Mahesh is a true-blue Bangalorean.
Naina Redhu
Naina is an artist of many talents. After an MBA she worked as an innovation consultant, then a brand designer for another 8 years. She now lives in Delhi and works on several types of photography projects that range from weddings, products, sports and concerts.
Photo Tantra
This husband-wife duo team has been shooting weddings since 2009 mixing candid-photojournalistic style with glamour photography. They’ve shot weddings all over India and covered destination weddings in Thailand & the UK.
Sharik Verma
Sharik Verma is an Engineering Graduate. He left his job at a large technology firm to pursue his passion – To capture and to create. Sharik operates independently out of Delhi and this freedom allows him to travel wherever his passion leads him or whenever he is called.
Amar Ramesh
For Amar, a Seattle based IT Consultant turned wedding photographer, there is no place like India to shoot weddings. Amar’s style is blend of documentary, fine art and candid. Amar discovered his passion for photography while working in the US and a few years later, packed his bags and moved to India to pursue it full-time. Amar is based out of Chennai.
Joseph Radhik
When Joseph decided to shoot his sister’s wedding in 2008, little did he realise he would quit his job at a consultancy firm a year later and take this up full-time. Joseph is based out of Bangalore.
