Watch: Joseph Radhik shares the don’ts of shooting a celebrity wedding

India Today

Celebrity wedding photographer Joseph Radhik has shared insights into shooting high-profile weddings, including the Ambani nuptials.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, everyone.

00:22And we are back here with a very interesting session which will, it's more pictorial than

00:29verbal, and you're going to see as we go by.

00:34My guest this afternoon is a very, very celebrated celebrity wedding photographer.

00:41He makes photographs of love, people, and people in love.

00:47You know his work most recently when the internet broke with the Ambani pictures, Aditi Rao

00:55Siddharth's wedding pictures, and very recently our prime minister with those majestic lions.

01:04That was very, very recent.

01:07Please meet Joseph Raddick.

01:09Joseph, who's been in the wedding photography industry for over two decades, celebrated

01:17with celebrities seen all over, made the most beautiful pictures, and always creating the

01:24most beautiful memories as weddings always do.

01:27Welcome, Joseph.

01:28Thank you, Ruchika.

01:29Joe, as we call him, been a roller coaster year, 2024, starting from February, we know

01:37what we're talking about, right up to July end, we have to start with a big wedding.

01:42So tell us a bit more about shooting those memorable moments at the Ambani wedding.

01:50I think that…

01:51Okay, so here's a fact.

01:52I took a six-month break after that wedding, because for one very specific reason.

01:58I felt that attending any wedding after that would be a culture shock for me, because the

02:04term wedding did not feel right anymore after that.

02:08It was unbelievable for me.

02:11And I think the toughest challenge thrown to me was, end of the day, the photos that

02:17the family gets should represent a bunch of happy memories amidst all of this stardom,

02:23all of this glitz, those tiny moments, right?

02:27And as soon as the wedding ended, I delivered a set of about hundred photos, which are not

02:30published anywhere.

02:31A set of?

02:32Hundred photos, which are not published anywhere.

02:36The other hundred that went to Vogue, they are chalk and cheese, trust me, they don't

02:40look the same at all.

02:42So in my mind, there were two weddings.

02:43So you know, what you saw is not what he shot fully.

02:47That's a secret he's revealing this evening.

02:49Yeah.

02:50That was it.

02:51I think…

02:52See, the thing is that everybody I spoke to, I have two instances I can tell you.

02:57Right after Jamnagar ended, I was in Crete, Greece, speaking at a wedding photography

03:02conference.

03:03There was a bunch of folks from Romania, who knew the Ambani family, like their entire

03:07family tree and everything, because this wedding was published all the way there.

03:13So it's always been a childhood dream that, you know, as a photographer, you hope to make

03:18photos that will be seen by a few people.

03:21But to think that your work went global…

03:23Viral and global.

03:25Is unbelievable.

03:26I think the first time it happened was before me in 2017, when Virat and Anushka wedding

03:30happened in Tuscany in December.

03:33That was, I thought, like the biggest point of my small career.

03:39But Radhika and Anushka completely has changed my view on that.

03:42Yeah.

03:43So from Virat and Anushka to Isha Ambani's wedding and many other functions to Katrina

03:49Vicky to even, I think, Siddharth and Aditi later.

03:54The highlight, of course, was the Ambani wedding.

03:56We all know, Joseph, we all want to know, Radha, for shooting any celebrity wedding,

04:02there are more don'ts than do's.

04:05Come on, tell us more about that.

04:08What are the don'ts?

04:10Okay, the first thing is, the don'ts is, I'm never touching my phone during the wedding.

04:15So that you don't leak a picture?

04:17No, no, with any type of photography with my phone.

04:20Okay, it's always my professional camera and nothing else.

04:23Okay, number one.

04:24Number one.

04:25Okay.

04:26Number two, I think the biggest, and this is an unsaid don't, right, to not get fixated

04:32by the big things.

04:34The big things are very easy to capture.

04:36So you don't get odd.

04:38Correct.

04:39And also the don't from my side is, you may have how many ever surprises.

04:43You may have Chris Martin perform at your Sangeet or Beyonce appear suddenly.

04:48Not for me.

04:49It's not a surprise for me.

04:50Right?

04:51You're not meant to be surprised.

04:52Is that what you're saying?

04:53Correct.

04:54Okay.

04:55I am the one who should know everything about the wedding way beforehand.

04:57And finally, the big thing in my mind is to stay true to the main story at hand and not

05:02get distracted by the many, many, many interesting side stories that are going on at a wedding

05:07like that.

05:08Yeah.

05:09Okay.

05:10Now, now that we're already talking, you have to give us one side story.

05:12We're not going to let you go without that one side story has to come out.

05:15Oh, God, I'm really bad at this detail, not just tell you, Ruchika, I'm focused on the

05:19main story.

05:20No, but every big story has a side story.

05:23And this is the biggest story of the year.

05:24You're not going to get anything out of me.

05:27See, that's the big don't.

05:31So you're from studying engineering and management and working with corporates to being a celebrated

05:37international award winning photographer.

05:40What has the journey been like?

05:42And what prompted you to delve into photography?

05:45Okay, so I'm from the south of India.

05:48I'm from Hyderabad.

05:50And pretty much in Hyderabad, if you're not an engineer or a doctor, you know, you've

05:54had a failed career.

05:56So I'm an engineer.

05:58My sister's a doctor, my brother's an engineer.

06:00So we pretty much followed the things that we were supposed to do, you know, so I gave

06:05the cat, I got through to the IIMs, having a decently successful career in corporate

06:11India.

06:12And somehow the wedding photography bug caught me when my sister got married, when I was

06:16looked out, this is way back in 2009, right?

06:19I think the most convincing argument I have put forward in the last 15 years is not to

06:26a client to hire me, but to my parents to quit my job and to take a wedding photography.

06:32It was met with utter horror in the initial moments.

06:35And then if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be doing this right now.

06:38They said do it.

06:39I was 26.

06:40Then if you're going to do it, do it now.

06:42And not later.

06:43Right.

06:44And the next four years, I think were unbelievable.

06:48And it's the next 15 years happened entirely by chance, right?

06:55Serendipity is what I like to call it.

06:57Ten days after I quit my job, I was on CNN, IBM, speaking on national TV about shifting

07:02careers and there was a TV reporter asking me to zoom my prime lens.

07:08It doesn't zoom by the way.

07:11It was completely bizarre.

07:12And I can give you so many little, little, little moments like this, which ended up with

07:17me shooting these celebrities.

07:19Because as I said, I come from a completely different background.

07:22I'm not from the industry.

07:24And to think that even the Ambani wedding, we were there primarily because we've shot

07:30some six other weddings in the family over the span of time from 2012 to 2020.

07:36So they knew us personally.

07:38Yeah, it's bizarre.

07:40I can imagine.

07:41I can't imagine that I'm sitting here and telling you this, just so you know.

07:44We know how to get it out of you.

07:46That's why.

07:47Your first celebrity wedding was Allu Arjun and Sneha?

07:52Correct.

07:53How did that happen?

07:54How did it fall in your lap?

07:55Okay, you're gonna, you're gonna laugh at this.

07:56I was speaking at a small creative conference called Pecha Kucha.

07:59It's a seven minute talk where you give like a TED talk kind of a thing.

08:03The front row was a bunch of Telugu film industry folks.

08:06And one of them comes up to me and then they say, in two months Bunny is getting married,

08:10you have to shoot this wedding.

08:11It's like, who is Bunny?

08:12So that's a funny name.

08:14And it turns out it is Allu Arjun.

08:15I didn't know his nickname.

08:16I knew him as Allu Arjun, the star.

08:19I'll tell you Richika, the fact that I started in the Telugu film industry, I think is the

08:23biggest boon, because they're some of the nicest people with zero celebrity-ness.

08:30And okay, having said that, I have to tell you, 15 years now roughly, I have not met

08:36a celebrity, celebrity till now.

08:38Oh, you haven't?

08:39The reason is that I think because we are tasked to shoot personal events, and not as

08:45commercial campaigns, I get to see the human side of them.

08:48I never get to work with them.

08:52Luckily for me, I have not worked with them afterwards.

08:54So I don't know how they are as, you know, in their profession.

08:57I know how they are as a person.

08:59How they are as a couple on those four days.

09:02Exactly.

09:03Exactly.

09:04Yeah.

09:05What we see on this side of the lens is picture perfect shots on Instagram being flashed and

09:11everybody and everything looking so beautiful and perfect.

09:14Are you told to shoot pictures?

09:17I mean, for Instagram, are they meant to be so perfect or, you know, earlier pictures

09:22were meant to be special moments, which are going to be cherished for the rest of your

09:26life, plastered in your albums, which and the albums which we all have and kept from

09:31our wedding.

09:32But now the whole game has changed.

09:34It's more about social media splashes.

09:37So tell me, how does your lens capture or differentiate between the two?

09:43So here's the thing.

09:45Even the most beautiful weddings are messy, right?

09:48And they're imperfect in dramatic ways.

09:51The magic of what you see on the screens right now is just curation.

09:54You are seeing what is 0.01% of the wedding.

09:58That's it.

09:59I think my job, especially at weddings, at the weddings that you see on the screens,

10:04these images are selected within the first half an hour of the wedding just wrapping

10:08up.

10:09When the kumala finishes, 35 minutes later, these images are shared on social media.

10:13I'm cherry picking the moments which look perfect, which leads to this perception that

10:19everybody's laughing at all of their weddings.

10:22So you're meant to do the ha ha ha pictures out.

10:25I'm cherry picking those, right?

10:27But in reality, there's this equal amounts of sweat and annoyance and frustration and

10:32everything else.

10:33These are real weddings.

10:34And these are all, luckily for me, these are all real moments.

10:38Because when the wedding is going on, I do not interact with my subjects.

10:44What makes you celebrities pick?

10:47Why do they come to you?

10:49What is that one difference that you bring to the pictures over and above the others?

10:53I think primarily, they have seen the photos that are not on Instagram, okay, through friends

11:00and family.

11:01They have seen those.

11:02And this, what I'm saying right now is true for pretty much everyone, I can link them

11:06back to one other client that they were close to, right?

11:10Because if you pick me based off of Instagram, you're essentially selecting a picture perfect

11:14photographer.

11:15I'm far from that.

11:17I'm the guy who gives you, as you said, memories to cherish for years for your own self.

11:22The good thing is some of these clients actually share these really nice photos, five years,

11:26six years, eight years, nine years later, and I get to share them again.

11:30But that's pretty much the reason, the fact that they're hiring somebody who's not cynical

11:34about weddings yet.

11:37Yeah.

11:38So, you have yet to come across one of those?

11:41Yeah.

11:42Hopefully not.

11:43Hopefully not.

11:44Yeah.

11:45Whatever we hear to kind of pick the pictures right after the any one occasion that you

11:51do, it must be requiring a team of many people.

11:55What is the big team that you carry with you when you go?

11:58What is the team size like?

12:00So the team, so I'm just coming here from a wedding in Hyderabad, where there were about

12:035,000 guests.

12:045,000 guests.

12:05Please note.

12:06It's a very intimate affair.

12:07Intimate affair.

12:08Yes.

12:09The bride will pointedly tell me she cut the guest list down from 10,000, right?

12:16We photographed a wedding in Haridwar about five years ago with 220,000 people.

12:21220,000 people.

12:22220,000 people.

12:23Probably the ghats were all overcrowded.

12:27So, I find it quite amusing when I'm questioned about the Ambani wedding, right?

12:32Where I'm like, this is table stakes, you know?

12:35Because there was 220,000 guests from 39 countries, if I'm not wrong.

12:39I have a photograph of the barat.

12:42It's a drone shot with the entire city of Haridwar literally covered with people just

12:46walking down the street.

12:48The bride's side had 500 guests for what it's worth.

12:52We have to know who the bride and groom is now.

12:54We have to.

12:55So this, the bride is the princess of Rewa.

12:58Princess of?

12:59Rewa.

13:00Dewa.

13:01Madhya Pradesh.

13:02And Ramesh Rawat, he's the son of Satpal Rawatji, Maharaj Satpal Rawatji from Uttarakhand.

13:06And he brought those 200,000 people with him.

13:09Correct.

13:10Okay.

13:11So yeah, we've been really blessed to photograph things like this.

13:13My team size for that wedding would be the largest.

13:15It would be 50.

13:16For yesterday's wedding, it would be as small as just eight people.

13:20That's it.

13:21Great.

13:22Yeah.

13:23We are seeing Siddharth Kiara, we saw Katrina Vicky.

13:27Which is your favorite celeb wedding?

13:29Oh, I'm going to get dragged through for this.

13:32You have to tell us some of the fun moments or one of the sneaky moments that you may

13:38have got into.

13:39I wouldn't say sneaky, but okay, see in 2017 was the year I got married.

13:43And at the end of that year, we photographed Virat and Anushka's wedding.

13:47And for me, being there amidst a group of 50 odd people or even lesser than that, I

13:53think perfect timing.

13:54That's the picture.

13:55Yeah.

13:56It just described what a perfect wedding would be.

14:00So in a wedding, all of us are wearing masks, metaphorical masks, right?

14:04We wear outfits, I call them costume parties, like Halloween parties, right?

14:08You get dressed and you behave a certain way in front of a bunch of people, you may or

14:12may not have invited yourself to the wedding, right?

14:15And somehow you're supposed to be celebrating the biggest moment of your lives.

14:20At this wedding, though, I saw the very opposite of that.

14:22I saw two people just being themselves 100%.

14:26You know, a good house party is when you can just go and chill.

14:30And somewhere down the line, you can decide if you want to get, you know, if you want

14:32to dance, you want to have a drink, do whatever you want.

14:35This was like that.

14:36And it's so few.

14:37In my entire career now, I would have seen less than 10 weddings like that.

14:42The last wedding in 2017, in 2024 was Aditi and Siddharth's.

14:46Small again.

14:47Entirely small people whom they can just be themselves in front of, right?

14:52There is no formality there.

14:54If you don't want to give your speech, it's fine.

14:57You know, after you exchange a ring, you can just look at the crowd and say, okay, what

15:02do we do now?

15:03There's no planner.

15:05There is no list of events.

15:06Great.

15:07Our time is up.

15:08But I'm going to wrap this up with one last question.

15:11What advice would you give to the young couples who want to have the most best and perfect

15:16moment captured?

15:17Perfect.

15:18Don't think of the pictures.

15:21The pictures are the result, they're not the process, if that makes sense.

15:27The process is your wedding.

15:29Is your wedding, spend time with your partner, spend time with your family.

15:32You know, those 72 hours of the wedding, they go by like that.

15:36Have fun.

15:37The photographer will do the job.

15:38Trust me.

15:39Little bit.

15:40Great.

15:41Thank you for that, Joseph.

15:42And we're looking forward to many more beautiful moments captured by you.

15:46Thank you so much.

15:47Thank you for being here.

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