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