Rachna and Niranjan – Part 1

𝑹𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒏𝒂 – If I go on to speak about my motivation behind my current profession as a wedding photographer, I can’t summarize it in few words.

I joined Infosys in 2006 and met Niranjan in 2007. At that time, we were in Mysore. We were friends for a year. Around 2008, both of us got an H-1B visa. One might feel ‘wow’ after listening to this. If you ask me, yes… indeed it was a ‘wow’ moment for us the day we got our visas, but later on, it had turned into hell for us. I am not blaming the organization. It was the situation we were trapped in.

Niranjan got posted within a few months. While he was leaving for the US, we realized that we had feelings for each other. We decided to make it official and went a step ahead to become a couple. For a year, I stayed in offshore while he was away.

In 2009, when he came back, I was sent to the US. Once again, we got separated by distance. I stayed there for 6-7 months. After my return, I was asked to report to Hyderabad. Then from Hyderabad, I traveled to Pune while he remained in Mysore. This went on till 2012; either he or I was in the US. We were never together during our courtship!!!

To kill this distance between us, we got married in 2012. We thought that this will end our woes. We hoped that maybe the managers would understand our situation and put us in the same city. Unfortunately, that never happened…

After marriage, we were in the US but different locations. And this went on for 2 years. For 6 long years, we were hardly able to spend time together, let alone live in the same city. Till a point of time, I was happy we were earning well but eventually, I realized what the use of all this money was when we were bereft of the most essential thing… our happiness. All those years I tried to hold on to my independence and my visa but eventually, my life had become very depressing, and finally, at the end of 2013, I decided to quit my job and moved to Seattle, his location. As I was now on a dependent H4 Visa, I was no more eligible to work. I did not want to waste my time sitting idle. Photography was my hobby and so I decided to delve more into it.

It was like starting from a fresh slate. We were finally together and we loved traveling, so we traveled on the weekends where I could shoot landscape. After a year, I also started shooting within the Indian communities – for birthdays, family celebrations, and other occasions. However, there was a big hurdle at that time. As I was an introvert, it took me a long time to get comfortable and be amidst a room full of unknown people and build up confidence.

𝑵𝒊𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒋𝒂𝒏 – Yeah… Talking about her introverted nature, I remember the time when she first started shooting people. It was her 1st wedding shoot.It was a small and beautiful American wedding. On the bride’s request, apart from the officially hired photographer, Rachna was there to take the candid shots. I guess the primary photographer was a native. She gave a hard time to Rachna. She was rude to her. Whenever Rachna tried to take pictures, she blocked her and kept asking her to take pictures from different angles. She even complained to the groom’s mother that Rachna was not allowing her to work which was not at all true! Even though Rachna was not doing anything wrong, she was having a bitter experience shooting the wedding. After receiving the complaint from the lead photographer, the groom’s mother had told Rachna to take pictures from the rear and sides and not to come before the lead photographer’s lenses. Rachna was completely taken aback and upset about it. Being an introvert, this was almost a setback for her. All sorts of questions ran inside her mind, mostly what would the bride, who had hired her, think of her…

Well, as it is said, all is well that ends well. Eventually, a positive outcome came of it. After few months, the bride, herself, got in touch with Rachna and expressed her gratitude for the moments she had captured. The photos taken by her were very beautiful! Rachna had not only captured the moments but also the cute little expressions of the bride and her husband. She said that her work was better than the lead photographer and they were glad that they were able to treasure wonderful memories of their wedding because of her. Needless to say, Rachna was ecstatic on hearing this as she got an opposite response to what she had expected.