How do you plan to capture those special moments on your big w-day?

Chennai: It starts with two individuals who want to spend the rest of their lives together. They want to document their wedding day in its entirety for the memories to be cherished forever so that they can return to these moments with their children and grandchildren and recall it all with a smile. About four years ago, it was all about families standing together and posing for the camera and a traditional portrait of the bride and groom.

Today however, wedding photography has grown immensely and has many different trends, starting from pre-wedding shoots to live Instagram feeds being projected in the halls. Today when every picture that one takes ends up on social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the photographers and the wedding party look out for creative concepts and storyboards for their wedding albums.

Candid photography, creative wedding photography, destination wedding shots, beach wedding shots, pre and post-wedding shoots, coffee table photo books at weddings, customised photo invites for friends, photo booths, selfie-live Instagram feeds and more are the current trends that are popular. DC talks to city-based photographers, Rakesh Prakash, Waseem F. Ahmed, Aaron Obed and Varun Suresh about their experiences with such concepts and more.

Rakesh Prakash, well-known wedding photographer, who also captured composer G.V Prakash and singer Saindhavi’s wedding, says that every season for a wedding photographer is good, especially if they started right around the time when there was a boom in the industry. He explains that concepts like photo booths or shooting destination weddings, both offer different levels of fun. “I give an option to my clients to have photo booths at their wedding; however to be clear, photo booths in India are not automated ones, like in the West. You have various props like the big glasses with lights or a big nose, a wig and so on at the booth and guests have a gala time, being shot at a photo booth with an interesting backdrop. The bride and groom want their guests to have fun on their big day.”

However, when it comes to destination weddings, which is another trending theme this wedding season, Rakesh says, “A destination wedding only rarely has mandaps, and almost always, prior to weddings, there are fun events that happen while the wedding per se is only a one-day deal. At times like that, as a photographer, I would have great angles to work on. For example, I worked on a wedding in Bali — three nights of parties, followed by the wedding. I had some great space, colour and decor with natural light to work with. That is one of the best things a photographer can ask for.”

Waseem, on the other hand, works on concepts like Humans of New York (HONY) style photographs of the couple and tries to spend as much time with them as possible to bring out the chemistry and the emotions in the frame. “What we love doing at Waseem F. Ahmed’s photography base (WFA) is to capture the pre-wedding shots. Most of my clients book me before the shoot. When we do the pre-wedding shoots in different locations, you have beautiful natural shots and quirky shots depending on the bride and groom,” he says.

He recalls a wedding he shot. “Sid, the groom was a very shy guy, he and Neha had been dating for about eight years and were engaged to be married. And before the shoot, Neha came to me and said he was yet to propose. That’s when we took them to this lovely place on the ECR and Neha was very happy. We had sessions where we made Sid propose and the photograph was later used in their wedding invitation, which came out really well.” He explains, “We use photographs from the pre-wedding shoot and then do the layout for the customised wedding invitations, which are mostly used for inviting friends.”

Today, though there are so many varying concepts, and quirky shots to get, there are still weddings that are traditional and orthodox, and where shooting candid or being creative might not be what is sought. Aaron agrees, “When the couple you are concentrating on are part of a love marriage or if they have known each other for quite sometime, shooting them becomes interesting. At that time, all I have to do is capture what they have for each other and be the person who facilitates an expressive conversation within them.” In fact, it was one such traditional wedding where the romantic shots from the pre-wedding shoot was taken as a coffee table book at the wedding for the guests to take a look at the couple together. “Though the idea was initially to project a picture, my idea for the coffee table book worked better because the guests got a personal peek in at the kind of people the bride and groom were, the chemistry they shared or the romance that was seen in the pictures,” he says.

Varun Ramesh, well-known for his shot stories page in Facebook that has over 40,000 followers, has a totally different style as a wedding photographer. “I document the whole event as it unfolds. There are no poses, no directives to the bridal party. However, when it comes to different concepts, recently, at a wedding I did in Singapore, the bride had this idea to post all the pictures taken at their wedding on Instagram and hash tag it with the name of the bride and groom which was then projected at the wedding. This has become one of the most interesting trends so far as the photographs are not edited, they just go live whether they are awkward pictures or fun.” So are concepts like these received well in Chennai? “It totally depends on the guest list,” says Varun. “There are different kinds of weddings, the one where it is a traditional, orthodox wedding with definite boundaries, and the one that is open with room to experiment. Another factor is the parents’ interest in the concepts. While the bride and groom have quirky ideas the parents may not want to spend money on such things. Creativity in such scenarios is not possible and there is no scope for it.”

All these trends point to one single thing — and that is to capture the range of emotions on the day, focus on the moment itself and devise something that will be cherished first by two people -— many more after them.