Natalia at IANS got in touch with me for a profile interview, I’m reproducing the interview from what was finally published.
Naina Redhu efficiently captures various important moments in people’s life through her lens to tell stories with images, but doesn’t like her work to be labelled as candid wedding photography.
“I dislike the term candid wedding photography even though I used it when I started out,” she said.
Redhu, who started wedding photography by capturing images of someone from the immediate family, feels “the ideal combination would be an intimate wedding with very few staged moments, if any, and a photographer who is always on and delivers fantastic processing and editing skills”.
“Call it what you will – candid or natural or un-posed or documentary or photojournalism – clients recognise well what they want,” she added.
She believes photos are the best way to store memories.
“Capturing or documenting a wedding or an event through a camera is one of the best ways to preserve them as a memory without directing (staging) that memory,” she added.
Talking about her first assignment, Redhu said she casually started it with her new DSLR camera.
“I happened to have a new DSLR and there was a wedding in the immediate family and I loved to make images, so it was an opportunity to make good images. I had already been photographing professionally for a few industrial clients and had been hired for portraiture assignments as well,” she said.
As a professional, her work involves variety of assignments – from weddings to lifestyle and luxury photography for events, visual documentation for brands, images for telling a story for a brand/people and travel.
“When the assignment with a client begins, they are all strangers. By the time the assignment wraps, they are friends,” she said.
Every event is important and a photographer cannot afford to go wrong.
“Whether photography or otherwise – a bad delivery can mean the difference between a great lifelong friendship and a lifelong grudge for ruining someone’s event. The best way to add warmth to a client relationship is by delivering the best and being professional,” she explained.
The expert also shared few handy tips for amateur photographers.
“Get professional quickly. If you want to stay in the game, up the game. Doing work for free for the ‘exposure’ is the worst thing you could do for your career and for your so-called ‘profession’ – it is never a simple exchange. Gear is not everything and show up consistently,” she said.
The interview was published on a number of online news streams. Times Of India, and too many other news wire services. Sorry, can’t possibly list all of them here.
