Sikh Wedding Photographer in Berkhamsted
Photographing Sikh weddings the relaxed way in Berkhamsted, through the maiyan, the gurdwara and the doli, backed by more than a thousand weddings and five Kodak Gold awards.
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Wedding photography from £750
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The short answer
Your Sikh wedding photographer in Berkhamsted, at a glance
London based and award winning, Kaushik Bathia has spent more than twenty five years photographing Sikh weddings, and he takes bookings from couples in Berkhamsted and right across Hertfordshire. Flash stays off inside the gurdwara whenever the light allows, so the warmth of the hall and the colours of the outfits come through as they really were. From the ragis singing kirtan as the sangat settles to the palla placed in your hands and the four rounds of the laavan, the whole Anand Karaj in Berkhamsted is recorded without a single flash fired. Five European Kodak Gold awards recognise the craft, but what matters on your day is that we have stood in darbar halls hundreds of times and know exactly where to be. You can add a pre-wedding shoot, a second photographer for the baraat and reception, and an album designed around your favourite spreads. Getting to Hertfordshire is our problem to solve, not yours.
Berkhamsted station sits on the West Coast Main Line into London Euston, useful when a sangat is splitting between a gurdwara anand karaj and a reception at Ashridge House. Inside the darbar hall the four laavan, the palla and the ardas are covered without moving about, heads covered and shoes off, the Guru Granth Sahib honoured as the living Guru. Berkhamsted Town Hall suits a smaller party. The ruined Norman motte and bailey castle gives the sehra bandi and doli pictures an unusual backdrop.
Serving Berkhamsted
Sat sri akal from Berkhamsted
Morning and evening are two separate jobs with one couple in the middle. A darbar hall lights itself and has done since the building went up, and no stand, no flash and no shifting of furniture alters that, so fast glass, high sensitivity and patience do the work. By evening in a country house the fittings are ours to add, and the pictures start looking deliberate again.
Between the two sits an hour nobody has planned for. It is also the hour when the sun finally drops low, and the only real chance to walk you out to the castle earthworks or on to the common before it goes. Ask your family to protect it. Lose it to a car park and an outfit change, and the portraits move indoors for good. Somebody has to own that hour, and it should be named on the plan.
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What we offer
What is included in your Berkhamsted Sikh wedding coverage
Fast Online Gallery
Documentary Approach
Every Sikh ritual
Sacred mornings, told in pictures
Mehndi and jago belong to the nights before, and the fittings already screwed to that ceiling are the entire lighting rig, which is rarely kind to skin. A baraat arriving at the hall is a short, crowded, outdoor minute, and it pays to walk it backwards before anybody leaves a car. Milni pairs men off in embraces that repeat down a line, so we stand where the line forms instead of chasing each pair.
Inside, movement is the constraint rather than light. Once a side of the hall has been chosen you keep it, which means choosing before anybody sits down. The Guru Granth Sahib outranks every person and every camera in that room, so no lens rises above it and none crosses in front. Four laavan, each beginning and ending on the same spot, so the differences between rounds are the palla, the pace and the faces watching. Langar is rows and overhead strip light. A doli happens at a car door, late, on one small light.
Why choose us
No laav missed, because we know what comes next
We are not waiting for the ragis to tell us where we are. The four rounds close on the same spot, and our position for the last of them is taken before it starts. That is the whole value of knowing the order: no scramble, no crossing the hall at the wrong second, no gap in the sequence that cannot be got back.
Good to know
Wedding photography in Berkhamsted, frequently asked questions
On foot and facing it, walking backwards ahead of the drum, then stepping aside as it reaches the doors. Wide lens for the crowd, long lens for the faces at the back, and no posing until the whole thing halts.
Yes. It is the last thing that happens and the worst lit, usually a doorway, a car and a crowd of relatives standing in the dark, so we carry the light for it instead of relying on a porch bulb.
A first handful comes back quickly. The rest waits on grading, which is done in one pass over the entire day so that a face keeps the same skin tone from morning until the last dance. Hurrying that step is what leaves a gallery looking patchy.
How long you want us there, how many days the weekend runs to, whether two rooms have to be covered simultaneously, and what gets made at the end. Send the shape of it over and the figure comes back plainly, with nothing buried.
Yes, and the transfer between them is the part we plan first. We need to know when the hall empties, how the couple travels, and who is holding the keys at the far end, because that is where coverage usually breaks.
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Milni · Anand Karaj · Laavan · Mehndi · Jago
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