Hello everyone.  Hope the new year is bringing you all much happiness and success!  Today, I bring you an E-session for Pratik and Manisha.  A few months back, Manisha contacted me and claimed to be one of my avid stalkers (my photography, not me personally), and how she wanted to get an engagement session done like all the other pretty folks on my site.  Of course I was more than happy to oblige.  We met, had some coffee, skyped with Pratik, and planned to do an E-session.  Problem is, Pratik lives in the great state of New Jersey, so scheduling just wasn’t working out.  For a while, it looked like it was just not going to work out, which was a bummer, because I really liked these two, and wanted to get them some dope pics.  Last month, Pratik randomly called me up that he was in town for the weekend, and luckily, I didn’t have another shoot… so this time, we were going to make it happen.  Manisha really liked some of my old bamboo shots, so we went down to Duke Gardens and did our thing.  These two are very natural in front of the camera, and I hardly had to give any directions.  I guess when you got it, you got it.  So without further ado, scroll below to see some of the pics.

Howdy folks! Today I am delighted to bring you a double dose of photos, a Mehndi and a Wedding. This was my last event of 2012, and boy was it spectacular. I have to say, in all of the Mehndhis and Wedding’s I’ve covered, this one was by far the most elegant one I’ve shot. I was blown away at how beautiful the decor was at both events. The mehndi was vibrant and colorful, while the wedding was elegant and beautiful. The small touches like hand shaped cookies with frosting, or having a real life artist painting the scene added that extra bit of awesome to the event. Bushra and her planner definitely spent time to plan all this out, and she’s a rebel for thinking outside the box. I mean she came into her mehndi in a ferrari scooter, how cool is that? I had a lot of fun covering both the events. I can sit here and talk all day about how awesome the event was, and how good both of them looked, or how emotional some of the moments were… but I rather let the pictures do the talking for me. So without further ado, please enjoy the slideshow below. For those of you without flash support (ie apple products), I’ve also posted a few of the images below.

“henna” hand cookies!  How cool is that?!

Congratulations Again Bushra & Sultan!

A special thanks to Caroline for coming down and doing an incredible job!

Assisting photographer: Caroline Lima
Wedding Planner: Monica Noa
Video: Samie Seyal

It’s a new year, and love is already in the air. Today, I bring you an engagement ceremony for my friend Gourang and his beautiful bride to be, Shuchi. I’ve known Gourang from the undergrad days in college, through several mutual friends. He’s a smart guy, so naturally, he’s doing big things these days… like starting his own company and working for big shots like Adobe. I met up with him a few weeks ago, and he informed me that he was getting engaged to the perfect girl. He told me that he was fortunate enough to meet Shuchi, a speech pathologist from St. Louis, and she was definitely The One.  Good news indeed! On top of that, he wanted me to cover the engagement ceremony, since you know… it’s sort of my specialty. Of course, being a good friend, I was happy to oblige. Long story short, we did a super quick outdoor session, and then covered the rest of the ceremony. Without further ado, I present you the images. Just a fair warning though, Shuchi has a killer smile… so view these images at your own risk!

Congratulations again guys!

Happy New Years! 2012 has been a great year for me.  Not only has it allowed me to see and explore many new people and places, but it has also been the busiest year so far in my career.  I had the privilege of covering events all over the states, from my local hometown in the east coast, all the way to sunny California in the west.  I know I’m a few weeks behind everyone else, but I just wanted to share a few of my favorite photos from 2012.  There were a lot of photos to go through, but these are my personal favorites from the bunch, so I hope you enjoy them. 2013 will be a better year, and have newer, more bold images… so stay tuned for all the fun and excitement!

Today I bring you a marriage signing and probably the quickest e-session I’ve done to date for Bushra & Sultan.  I enjoy photographing marriage signings because they are genuine, doesn’t involve the stress of a wedding day, and all the nervousness and excitement the couple experience are in their purest form.  It’s the one event before all the extravagance of a wedding, where things are simple, but still sweet.  Both Bushra and Sultan have super busy schedules, along with living in different states, so we only had one day to tackle the signing and the session.  For the E-session, we had 15 minutes, so I tried my best to make every minute count.  Although this was a speedy session, I feel we got some really great moments throughout… so scroll below and checkout all the goodness.

Congratulations again guys!  See you in a week for the big day!

Howdy folks!  Just want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.  While you’re chowing down on that holiday meal, why don’t you check out this recent wedding for Roshan (or Rosh) and Julie’s wedding.  If you haven’t seen their awesome e-session yet, I suggest you click this link and check it out now!  The wedding took place on a very windy day in Morrisville NC, and was a joy to photograph.  Naturally, both Julie and Rosh are very photogenic, so it was not that hard to get some great moments.  Without further ado, scroll below and check out the photos.

Sumeet & Rita, two of my wonderful clients from the past

A very special thanks to Caroline for coming out and rocking this wedding with me.

Today I am pleased to bring you what is turning out to be one of my favorite weddings of the year.  Tanbeena, or Beena as we call her, has been an avid stalker of my work for a while now. Now a lot of people have claimed that they are my biggest fan, but Beena has officially kept that role for a few years now.  She’s the only person I know who randomly sent me messages through facebook in the past, on multiple occasions, just to say how much she loved the photos… and how I’m going to be her photographer one day.  Normally, stalking is not cool… but I’ve known Beena and her wonderful family for over 15 years now, so it’s totally cool.  Earlier this year, she contacted me and told me that she had finally met the man of her dreams, and would be married later in the year.  I was absolutely thrilled that a friend was getting married, but also because I was going to cover the event just as she wanted.

This wedding took place at the lavish Grandover Golf Resort in Greensboro NC.  Despite being mostly cloudy throughout the day, the beauty of the surrounding more than made up for it, and we got some great photos.  Beena has one of the nicest smiles out of all the brides I’ve shot.  If you don’t believe me, just scroll down and look for yourself. I had to literally write that out here because she thinks I tell that to all my brides.  Throughout the day, there were many magical moments.  There were so many great images, that I realized halfway through editing that it would be way too long for my blog post.  So, since she’s fan numero uno, I decided to make her a cool slideshow to give you an idea at how awesome this wedding was.  On top of that, being the #1 fan has it’s perk…. like having your face on the main gallery of the home page!  So all you future fans out there, take notes.  I could sit here all day and talk about how awesome the wedding was.  Instead, I’ll just let the photos do the talking for me.  Hope you all enjoy this one as much as I did.

The Photographs

Nousheen is one of my lovely brides from the past, who also happens to be the matchmaker to this wedding!

Congratulations again Tawfiq & Tanbeena

Big thanks to Janan for coming down to G-boro and helping me out

Me and some of the guys, looking G as usual

Today I bring you the walima for Rizwan & Farheen.  Rizwan had gotten a hold of my information through my friend Seema, and the rest was history.  I was expecting this walima to be just like any other walima I covered before.  However, to my surprise, there was a special event that even the bride & groom were unaware of.  Rizwan is a huge Michael Jackson fan.  Man has good taste, because I too am a huge Michael Jackson fan.  His brother managed to track down the number one Michael Jackson dance impersonator in the world, Signature, and fly them all the way from UK just for this special event.  These are the guys who went on Brittan’s got Talent and made it to the finals.  It was a pretty special performance, but rather than talk about, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.  Hope you enjoy:

Congratulations Again Rizwan & Farheen

Today I bring you an Extended E-session for John & Jyoti.  Sometimes it’s pretty cool to see how things connect.  A while back I did a surprise proposal for Ashish & Neema, and it was featured on a few blogs.  From there, Jyoti randomly saw the photos, and made up her mind that she wanted to do an E-session with me.  I was more than happy to oblige of course.  Like most couples these days, Jyoti and John live and work in different states, so it was a bit of a challenge to work out a schedule that worked for everyone.  John was a trooper.  He flew in from NJ the night before, but was ready to go and do what was necessary for the shoot since 6 the next morning.  For most guys, a photo shoot is bad enough, so it’s easy to tell that he truly loves his girl.  Though Jyoti went to the same school as I did for grad school (ECU), she was an UNC alumni, so she wanted to incorporate the photo shoot around her Alma-mater.  Since this was an extended session, I also wanted to shoot some images at a nearby farm, and some in the downtown area.  As luck would have it, once we got to the farm, it started to pour…  I mean it went from light drizzle to flash flood warning bad.  At one point, I was completely soaked through the bone, and manage to get water into quite a few of my equipments, to the point where they stopped working.  We still managed to work our magic and get some shots at the farm, in the rain, and shot the downtown scene the next day.  Jyoti was a bit nervous at first since they’ve never done a photo shoot together before.  Looking at the photos, I don’t know why she was nervous.  They were very natural and fun to be around, and all in all, we had an amazing time together.  John & Jyoti, congrats again, and I hope you guys like the images as much as I do

Giving me that Wisconsin Smile

John had to represent his home turf too

Weather turned for the worse

Congrats again John & Jyoti

Here I am completely soaked from the rain

Summer is almost over!  With all the weddings, meetings, traveling, this summer has been the busiest ever.  Today, I wanted to take a break and bring you the wedding of Munawar & Uzmaa.  I was referred to Uzmaa by Ayesha and Mansoor, who’s wedding I just happen to have shot a few years back.  I was excited about this wedding because A) I would see a lot of familiar faces, and B) it was going to be in Dearborn MI.  Not sure if any of you have been to Dearborn before, but it’s a pretty awesome place.  I call it, “Arab central in the heart of the US” because there are tons of middle eastern people, stores, cafes, and restaurants there.   On top of that, this wedding was on the 4th of July weekend.  Ford headquarters is located right around the corner of where the wedding took place, so I got to see a lot of cool, classic Ford cars on the day of the wedding.  Uzmaa and Munawar were simply awesome.  These two were one of the nicest clients I had the pleasure of working with, and they were up for almost anything I asked them to do, even if it meant standing in the dark while flaming sticks were being waved around them (see last image ).  I had a blast at the wedding, had a great time in Dearborn, and enjoyed seeing a lot of friendly faces.  Check out the pics below:

Skyping Internationally to family overseas – you bet!

He had to find his name in her henna

One of the Classic Fords that was parked in the parking lot

It took us 20 minutes to do this shot because we couldn’t find anyone with a lighter or match. I’m glad we tracked one down though

Congratulations again Uzmaa & Munawar!

Special thanks to the Kazi’s for referring the wedding and helping me feed the kids… well…  future kids that is.