The beginning was already an indication but how could I even imagine what was about to come? We were a team of photographers flown in from around the world to cover this destination wedding in India; yours truly for the documentary angle, Martin Hill from the UK for the portraits and Emmanuel Jambo from the US for the shots we would miss from the top of the hill or the terrace overview. Mike Cottril and his award winning ReelVision cinematography team, Jeff Wood and Rich Wakefield came from the UK. We were a winning team and we were out to rock the city.

Trying to fit this wedding into one post would be quite impossible so here is part one with the events of the first two days starting with the Ganesh pooja at the Oberoi, the haldi ceremony at the Leela palace and the most elaborate, stunning and fantastic ladies sangeet I have ever seen at the Zanana mahal in the heart of Udaipur’s city palace. I have never imagined the place could look so stunning and if the decor and the lights were not enough, the UK based RDB came over as a surprise for the bride to shake the house with some real desi beats and the old palace came to life with colors and smoke until the early hours.

Look out for part 2 coming soon with the barat, the colorful Mehendi at the Trident, the wedding at the Leela Palace and the incredible reception and fireworks at the Jagmandir.

Decor: Dhun Corado for Full Moon creative cervices
Wedding planner: Anita Patel for Tania-Tapel events worldwide

Sephi Bergerson is a wedding photojournalist based in India since 2002 and is available for Indian wedding photography and destination weddings in India, south east Asia, Africa and the Indian ocean.

“My conversation with Sephi Bergerson was only over the phone, but owing to a faulty connection and repeated technical snags, our interview lasted longer than it normally would have. At the end of our talk I could so easily see why anyone would welcome him into their homes and entrust him to capture moments of their wedding that they will cherish forever. Warm, energetic, humorous and with a penchant for quirky analogies, Bergerson is completely engaging and an artist in his own right.”

A good feature although I really cannot figure out what on earth made them choose the name ‘Knots & Crosses’ for a feature about my work. Anyway, it is done and I’m happy with the way it turned out.

The interview also mentions the Ultimate Wedding Photography Workshop that is to be held in Bangalore from January 13-15, 2012. The workshop will cover a whole gamut of concepts – branding and marketing, finding your niche in the market, how to promote yourself, equipment, how to shoot in the day/night, couple portrait, shooting with available light, creative flash use, contracts, negotiations, pricing, digital workflow and post production. If you haven’t applied yet there is still room for a couple more attendees so check it out and apply HERE

The magazine is now available in stores across India and Singapore so check it out.

I must have been to almost every palace in the Udaipur area but never before to Devi Garh. Nestled in the Aravali hills this spectacular all-suits 18th century heritage resort is definitely one of the most beautiful locations for a royal wedding in India. In all this luxury it was a pleasant surprise to see the simple and down-to-earth style and attention to detail.  It was a small wedding of about one hundred guests and a treat to be a part of.

Regardless of the number of weddings one attends, being a destination wedding photographer should never become a job. If it does you will become a photocopy machine for wedding images and every wedding will end up looking the same. In the world I live in this is not what a couple look for in the person they hire to document the most important day of their lives. The scariest thing for me about being a wedding photographer is to get bored. I have been shooting weddings for a few years now and am always trying to outdo myself. This is not an easy task but every now and then I feel there is a breakthrough and I find a new way to shoot an old subject.

The wedding itself is always rather easy to shoot. It has action and ceremony and as such will always yield good images. It is almost math. there are things one needs to cover, certain angles, few important moment but it is the reception that has always been tricky. No offense but people mostly talking or eating is not a dream subject. I am not a fan of on-camera flash and posed pictures of friends and family all smiling for the photo. It needs to be something else and I think I made some progress this time. I could have made a much larger gallery of images only from the receptions as I am very proud of those but really there was so much to show. Here is a small taste of it while Oli and Geeta and on their way to their honeymoon…

The decor and set up of the events was done by Vijea and Ankit of Regal-Weddings. This was not the first time I had the pleasure of working with them and as usual it was simply perfect. The make-up was done by Sanjay Relia and Geeta said she had never looked so pretty in her life. Great team.

Sephi Bergerson is a wedding photojournalist based in India since 2002 and is available for destination wedding photography in Udaipur, Jaipur, palace weddings in Rajasthan or a beach wedding in Goa or Kerala. Sephi is also happy to travel for wedding photography in Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, Maldives, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

How do I start to tell a story of a couple who decided to have a destination wedding in Goa alone with only two guests; the groom’s mother and the bride’s grandmother?  If a destination wedding in Goa is what you had in mind than check this one out.

Wedding or not, Linda and Jöerg had been considering to spend this year’s vacation in Goa as they felt it was time for a “real vacation on the beach”. They were missing India so ruled out a Mediterranean location and decided to come to Goa for reasons that could sounds like an advertisement from the Goa tourism board: ”a laid-back beach break combined with incredibly good food and, of course, some India but not in such an extreme variation”.

Then there was still the wedding to be planned. It didn’t take them very long to decide that they didn’t want to go for the “classic all-friends-and-family-big-event” kind of thing with a long guest list. Since they opted for a very simple and intimate wedding with no-one but the two of them they thought it might as well be abroad. Having opted for Goa as a honeymoon destination, the idea was to simply combine the wedding and the honeymoon.

The idea of Linda’s grandmother and Jöerg’s mom joining came a bit later. Initially, they were thinking of doing the registration part in India as well but found out, not to their surprise, that this would have been quite a bureaucratic scenario. Among hundreds of other regulations they would have required two witnesses from Germany. There was a quick thought of slightly breaking the “no-guest-policy” and taking the two ladies with them, which then seemed rather illusionary and a bit too adventurous. They then settled for the legal registration to take place in Germany (on a small island by the baltic sea not far from Berlin, again with no guests) and just do the church ceremony in Goa.

However, the idea of this really special India experience with two of the most important people in their lives somehow didn’t let go. Just a few weeks before the wedding they decided to give it a final try and the two ladies actually liked the idea. Though rather doubtful in the beginning regarding what will expect them in India, they quickly became very excited and of course loved the idea of attending the wedding.

We all met at the fabulous Alila Diva hotel in Majorda and spent some fun time together as Linda was putting on her own make up. We then proceeded to the Bishop’s palace in Panaji not before stopping at the Panaji bus stop flower market to buy some flowers and in the main market for rings. Not like a regular Indian wedding, we were on time to the church for an intimate and emotional wedding.

The mass was over in the late afternoon and we went on for a short walk at the Portuguese quarter in Panaji for a fun photo shoot before heading out for a street food dinner of Pao Bhaji and Sev Puri on Miramar beach. Wonderful.

Sephi Bergerson is a destination wedding photographer based in Goa  and available for assignments worldwide.

This intensive three day workshop on Indian wedding photography will be a good blend of lectures, discussions, and assignments in which participants will learn to tackle the challenges of being or becoming a wedding photographer in India, for all that it means. We will discuss ways to identify your niche in the market, pricing, contracts, business approach, as well as technical challenges of shooting at a wedding. We will talk about working alongside other photographers, how to handle harsh video lights, use of natural light vs flash and more. You will also be given tips on equipment and digital concerns in different situations. You will learn to conquer your digital workflow, post production, color correction, creating lightroom presets, finalizing your images and archiving.

Indian wedding photographer, wedding photographer in India, wedding photojournalist, destination wedding photographer, documentary style wedding photography available for wedding photography in Bangalore, Goa, Udaipur, Jaipur, Kerala, also available for destination wedding photography in Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius wedding photographer, Maldives wedding photographer, wedding photography in Sri Lanka

A Beach Wedding in Goa

Udit and Shivani’s wedding was held at the Intercontinental Lalit Goa resort and was one of those beach weddings that you hear about from people that keep telling how wonderful it was. When I lived in Delhi I used to wait for time off so to go to Goa and relax and now that I live in here it all takes a new meaning. I spend a lot of time on the beach and let me tell you that there is a good reason why Udit and Shivani decided to come all the way here for a their wedding. Here is a small collection of images from their red wedding on the blue beach. Click on the image to go through the gallery.

Goa Wedding Photojournalist

Goa as an attractive location for a destination wedding is not a new thing. All the major hotels have special wedding packages that make it relatively simple to organize one, even if you are based in NY. It seems that it is probably the most organized state in India in terms of the wedding industry with many wedding planners who cater to couples who have never been to India but wish to get married following Indian customs at “an exotic location”.

After nine years in Delhi we have moved to Goa in January and loving it. We took an old portuguese villa in the north and the girls simply love it. Twenty six coconut trees in our garden give us all the supply that we need to keep happy. If we get tired of those, there is also the huge mango tree that gives amazing mangos in May so when the wedding season is over I can have as many mango shakes as I want.

A wedding photographer is not a vendor

You can haggle, push and pull but the quality of the service or product that you purchase will not be affected by the negotiating process. The coconut water will taste the same. You can compare prices, make a bid, do what you want basically as long as the contract is signed properly you will get what you ordered. Not with a photographer. The quality of the work you get from a photographer changes based on how you work with him and this is the biggest difference between a vendor and a creative talent. If you treat a photographer like a vendor you are likely to get a mediocre result in return. On the other hand, if you treat a coconut vendor like an artist you’ll be wasting your time and money.

Read the full article on the blog

I started the afternoon with the bride at her getting-ready room while my friend and fellow photographer Andrew Adams who joined me for this wedding had a chance to go to the palace before everyone else and get some incredible shots of the decor and ambiance. I particularly envy that great shot of the two elephants in front of the palace gate but I’m glad that at least one of us could get it. I think that between the two of us we pretty much managed to give a good coverage of the events.

The next day was a lot more relaxed and included a family lunch and some fun couple’s games. The evening reception at Castle Kanota at the outskirts of Jaipur was again a chance for everyone to show their dancing skills. Definitely a wedding to remember.

The long period of Portuguese rule has left an indelible influence on the original style of this small state and a large percentage of its population is Christian. The countryside is dotted with many beautiful churches and Old Goa has some incredible old cathedrals. Many families still live in their ancestral houses built in the typical Portuguese style, and as a matter of fact even I live in one of these houses in north Goa now, but this is another story.

Analisa’s family still own the old family home not far from Panjim city and regularly visit on family vacations. The old Portuguese house is full of memories and feelings. Wondering through the huge rooms I could almost hear the generations of people that used to live there and spending the time with the entire family there in the hours before the wedding was an unforgettable experience. It was only natural for Analisa to come here for her wedding and be led to the altar of an incredible church on the hill.

The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is located in the heart of Panjim on the hillside overlooking the entire view of the city and built in 1540 it is one of the oldest churches of Goa. The wedding took place just after Christmas and before the New Year and the church was beautifully decorated. The scene of the Nativity and little Jesus in the crib was created at the bottom of the stairs and was so colorful that it almost looked a part of Disneyland.

The wedding itself was simple and beautiful. Having documented such a huge variety of Indian weddings it was beautiful to see an Indian Roman Christian wedding in it’s full glory. Bride’s maids and best men in suits, children holding flowers in their hands and the whole feeling of the magnificent church was quite a change for me.

The wedding reception was held at the garden of the Cidade de Goa where we finally got our share of decorated coconut trees. It was a total fun that lasted well into the night. Here’s to you Analisa and Jaidev. It was truly awesome.

The party started with a mehendi afternoon of music and dance which was a good opportunity for the families coming from the UK and India to mingle and get to know each other. We then took a break and the barat was to start at 6:30pm. Now you know how it is with Indian weddings and the notorious Indian Stretchable Time (IST). If you say six thirty you should actually plan for seven thirty, but not this time. The groom’s side, being proper, showed up on time at 6:27 all dressed up and almost ready. I say almost ready as no one could have prepared them for the drumming and the band. It was the funniest thing to see but they did eventually warm up and even danced.

The wedding itself was the morning after and was a full fledged south Indian spectacle at the beautifully decorated amphitheater, after which the three of us managed to escape for an hour for a few fun pictures. If I remember correctly it was “Rent yourself a palace for the wedding and go take some pictures in the crummy village” in Fergus’s words. It was a blast!

It was not very difficult to feel under-dressed at Anu and Fergus’s wedding. Say what you want about the Brits but they sure know how to dress up. I was on the phone with my wife at one point and remember telling her I am at a party with a bunch of James Bonds having Gin & Tonic and listening to Indian music while the beautiful women wearing flowers in their hair were taking all the attention. “We could not possibly outdo the grandeur of Indian outfits” said to me one of Fergus’s uncles, “so we figured it is best to be English”. Simple and very convincing logic. I was in tears when Christopher gave his best-man-speech and said it was good to scratch the surface but very dangerous to be there if you are a whale as this is when you get harpooned. I could not see through the lens with tears in my eyes. Good old fashioned British humor that I only enjoyed on TV until now. Hard to believe but I’ve never been to England. Maybe it is time to go!