Haldi, Mehendi & Sangeet Photography in Wanowrie, Pune

Most of it is waiting

A mehendi is four hours of people sitting about and twenty minutes of ritual.

The photographs almost everybody takes are of the twenty minutes, and the four hours are what the day was actually like.

Cousins on a sofa, somebody asleep in a corner, the endless small negotiations about food and music and who is sitting where.

That material is easy to photograph and nobody prioritises it, because it does not look like an event.

It is, however, the part that reads as a family rather than as a function, and it is what people revisit.

The ritual gets covered thoroughly regardless — that is not in question and it is what was booked.

This is simply about not treating the hours between as dead time to be waited through.

It is worth photographing the practical business of these functions rather than only the ceremonial parts.

Turmeric being mixed, sheets being spread, the argument about where the speaker should go. All of it is the function as much as the ritual is.

That material is easy to take and it is what makes the coverage feel like a family week rather than three events.

It is also worth covering the recovery between functions.

People sprawled about, somebody eating standing up, the general exhaustion of a wedding week is genuinely affectionate material.

Nobody plans for it because it does not look like anything, which is exactly the point.