India has always been my dream destination to shoot. I believe that nowhere else is a country’s culture more pronounced than in here. You don’t need to go to the outskirts of the city to find it because it embraces you even before you set foot on it. It is that prevalent and it is that intense.

I was both excited and honesty, intimidated when Janeen and Kennard decided that we’re going to shoot in India.

Excited because it felt so right. The last time I’ve been here more than three years ago, I felt I could have done more and done better but I didn’t have the time or the opportunity to make it work. This time, we planned it appropriately – when, where, and what we are going to shoot. The ideas were ambitious and that’s why it got a bit intimidating.

We knew exactly what we wanted to do and we had an idea on how we were going to do it, yet nothing is really certain. Photos relating to portrait, fashion, or wedding photoshoots in India are not that widespread, information on how to go about them are even few and far between. We would have to be adaptive and shrewd enough to work with what we will given.

True enough, the challenges were many. We cannot just go in there and tell 40 elephants what to do and how to position themselves. We cannot tell them to light up the Taj Mahal at night when they don’t do it anymore like how we saw in some of its existing photos, and it’s never easy to keep the most famous tourist spots of the country, free from people just so we can have a shot for ourselves. We are not Vogue magazine, we not powerful nor we have an endless strap of cash.

We learned to compromise and we also got lucky. The rain came in as a blessing that drove the tourists away for a good ten minutes and allowed us to have the Taj Mahal all to ourselves. We also met a well-travelled professional photographer/teacher who gave us insider tips on where and how to shoot in Jaipur. Because of these, we were able to create shots that are more fascinating and really original.

Today’s post of the photos from Jaipur is just part 1 of 2 of our India feature so please visit back as I conclude my write-up and we finish off with the photos from the Taj Mahal in Agra. Enjoy :)