Welcome to The Wedding Travelers!

I was looking through the archives for some shots for our new blog (coming soon!) and saw some photos I wanted to post here. I was thinking of going back through the whole trip and posting shots from each place. Who would be interested in that? Leave a comment if you want that!

For now here are those awesome photos:

 A traveler on the streets of Jaisalmer.

And another local from the streets. 

 From the Qutab Minar in Delhi.

 The Lotus Temple in Delhi.

 Hanging jootis in Calcutta

 Buddha sculpture from the temple at Krabhi, Thailand.

An awesome rhino from Kaziranga. 

Our boatman from Varanasi. 

Hope you enjoyed that little hodge-podge, but I'll keep things a bit more organized as I keep posting!

Also, I have gotten a couple emails regarding the Hindu Wedding article, and how it's not finished. Oops! I'll definitely try to get that finished up soon for you all!

Cheers,

Lauren :) 

Category: Adventures

Tags: architecture, bahai, buddha, calcutta, carving, delhi, fort, india, indian one horned rhino, jaisalmer, kaziranga, krabi, landscape, lotus temple, photography, qutb minar, safari, temple, thailand, travel, varanasi

We got this email a little while ago, and I really wanted to share it here. Since returning home we've gotten wrapped up in our wedding business, and haven't been able to work on the Wedding Travelers very much. But Tara sent us this email that really reminded us of the power and importance of what we're doing. Since we're still so new to photography we often don't realise how much of an impact our work can have on people, and it was really wonderful of Tara to write and tell us how she felt about our photos. 

Anyway, thank you so much to Tara for her email. We will be working a lot more on this website to try and share all that we have learned.

Here's the email (posted with Tara's permission, of course :)

"Hi Lauren and Rob,

 

OK, I had a fellow photographer tell me about your site yesterday. I am of Indian origin though have grown up in the US. I'm just getting started in the wedding photography world and was telling this photographer that I want a logo that kind of shows my background with a little Indian twist, but something less cliche. Anyway she mentioned you guys and your cute little elephant logo, so I just looked up your site. 

 

Breathtaking. Inspiring. Amazing. I find that a lot of photogs that shoot Indian/Hindu/South Asian weddings in general, are good at capturing color, but sometimes not so great at capturing the little nuances of the ceremony and the traditions. I understand this because its hard to understand the significance of every little moment if you don't know the culture well and have seen the many traditions a few times. I am floored by your ability to capture this moments and the way you have absorbed yourself into especially Indian culture.

 

I would be honored to meet you at some point in life and I am just _SO_ inspired by your work because I would love to do the same kind of thing but probably am too scared! If you ever had a photog workshop or tips or anything or even needed someone to carry your bags, I would be there in a second, because I would be so so so so so happy to just chat with you about your experiences, I'm so curious as to what you have learned simply by traveling (not even getting to the photography!).

 

Anyway, Seriously I have so much respect for you, and thank you. Thank you for describing and detailing my culture's traditions so well and capturing the heart of it. I'm sitting here so welled up with emotion from looking at your pictures and so happy to see photography that has so well illustrated so many traditions beloved to me. Someday when I get married, you have shot right to the top of my list of possible photographers.

 

Regards,

Tara"

And I wanted to share a few photos that show some more of the beauty of India.

Three beautiful children that loved to smile at our camera from the seat behind us on a bus ride to Jaisalmer.

Details from a Jain temple just outside of Jaisalmer.

A incredible alleyway in Jodhpur.

And an early evening shot of the main clocktower in Jodhpur.

That's all for now. Picking out and editing those photos has made me deeply, deeply miss India right now.  

Lauren  

Category: Check this out!

Tags: architecture, carving, children, india, jainism, jaisalmer, jodhpur, photography, portrait, street life, sunset, temple, travel

First, before we get to the magic of Jodhpur, let’s take a look at a couple of the photos from Bombay, as we drove towards the train station. It was simply unbelievable how many people were living like this along side the road. The rows and rows of these shelters never seemed to end.


And yet life seemed to go on as usual


It was certainly a very humbling taxi ride.

Now we’ll take a big leap into Rajasthan, to the city of Jodhpur, called the Sun City. I can honestly say that this is one of the most visually interesting places we’ve ever visited! We’ve certainly had a wonderful time taking photos here, and could stay for much longer, but alas, we’re about to move on. Such is our whirlwind journey around this huge country!

So the other day we armed up with our cameras and endeavored to simply wander and shoot. Sure, we usually end up getting lost, and having to catch an auto-rickshaw back to our hotel, but it’s always fantastic. We end up wandering far away from the normal tourist route, to places where people seem more interested in the fact that we’re carrying huge cameras than the fact that we are tourists who can be sold things. We end up getting lots of great shots of people as we do that, so today we’ll primarily be showing you some of the neat portraits we took.

First off we came across a woman painting pottery. She would put the red designs on using her fingers, dipped in thick red paint. It looked wonderful.



Then it was a puppy attack!! An attack of kisses, that is. These two puppies came running out at us and just showered us with kisses. Wonderful Indian hospitality : )



Ok, this picture is likely to make us laugh for years and years to come. Just after we were attacked by the puppies, we heard this very strange sound coming from down the street. We looked up to see a donkey barreling down the road, all alone, basically screaming and just running like nobodies business. To this day I still have no idea why a lone donkey was just running down the road, but I can’t help but giggle when I think of the sight.



Now to those portraits. Kids love to come up to us and ask for their photo to be taken. This dapper young guy even gave Rob a big “Thank you”. We love good manners : )



And how could you not be stopped in your tracks by this absolutely gorgeous little girl??


These schoolchildren literally mobbed us. Seriously. A couple came up to ask for their photos to be taken, and then all of a sudden we were surrounded by dozens of them all screaming at us for a photo! It was nuts! We had to run away eventually, but it was pretty darn funny



I love the smile on this little girl



And this dapper guy is our “internet man”. Just across the street from our hotel is an internet point, and this is the owner. He chatted with us for a while, and then Rob took his photo. The guy liked it so much that we burned him a CD right there with the shots! He was so pleased that he announced that he would pray to the gods that we would have a son before the next time we come back to India....Lol!!



Then as the sun was setting I walked up to the roof of our hotel and took a couple shots of the surroundings. The landscapes here are absolutely breathtaking.


One of the most intriguing aspects of Jodhpur is that many of the buildings are painted blue. Add to that the huge figure of Meherangarh Fort, and you have a pretty impressive sight.



And, as is becoming the norm here in India, we hear some loud noises, and rush outside our hotel room to see a huge parade going by. This one was actually a barat, the procession of the groom to the wedding. If you look up in the right corner of the photo, at the end of the line of people, you can just make out the groom sitting on his big white horse.



And what is another common sight here, geckos!


So thus ended our first day here. And the next day we were off to the fort, so that is what you get to see next! Stay tuned : )

Category: Adventures

Tags: bombay, india, photography, portrait, poverty, street life, temple, weddings, wildlife

Hey friends!

So first off I want to give a big thank you for all the wonderful comments on the last post. There’s always an element of uncertainty when you post some rather negative thoughts about a place like India, which is shrouded in such mystery for so many people, but I’m glad to see that while you all now understand the down sides of this country, you too are seeing all the beauty that we are. And I’ll give a quick note to let you know that the whole country is not as dirty and hectic as Calcutta and Varanasi. I’ll be posting about Mumbai soon, which we both loved, and we just got into Jodhpur today and this city is simply magical. But let’s hop all the way back to Ajanta shall we?

So after we hung out in Varanasi for a while, we caught a train to Jalgaon. It’s a little transit town that serves almost solely as a jumping off point for a trip to the Ajanta caves. Our first night there we were off to the train station (a 2 min walk from our hotel) to reserve our ticket onwards. There are many ticket booths in the station, and we found the one designated for foreigners. We were quite surprised at who we shared the booth with…and I’m not talking about the Senior Citizens…




I’m not sure if any of you have heard of the Ajanta caves, but they are kind of a big deal. After a long and jarring bus ride on a local bus we made it to the caves. We were greeted with this sign that we both found hilarious



But then it was time to get serious, because these caves are serious business. A World Heritage site, they consist of 30 Buddhist caves carved into the face of a horse-shoe shaped gorge. Here’s a shot to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.



A walk along the path will take you past each of the caves and so getting around was merely a matter of walking, stopping to take off your shoes, checking out the cave, and then moving along. And it was a blissful refuge from the very hot sun to duck into a cool and dark cave every few minutes. But these were much more than simply places for shade. Don’t get me wrong. The carvings inside were absolutely astounding, I can’t believe that this place isn’t better known! We’ve been to Greece and have seen a lot of the ancient sites there, but nothing even came close to this. So many of the caves had a incredible Buddha carving at the back.


This particular cave was really great. The giant Buddha was guarded by these other figures (his followers, I believe) and with the lighting and the atmosphere we completely felt like we were in an Indiana Jones film.



The carvings on the wall were amazing, and each cave had such different details than the others





Isn’t this incredible? The entire wall was completely filled with these carvings right out of the wall.



As we were taking a break we took a couple of “glamour shots” of each other. Rob really likes this one of me looking like a really cool photographer (you are probably wondering where I got those really cool pants! They are from Bangkok, and are really nifty)


Rob giving us his model pose


And another of me



But I bet you just want to see the caves right? Well even the ceilings were spectacularly decorated



And entrances were amazing as well



Really, how many adjectives and superlatives can I find to describe these things?



A really wonderful reclining Buddha





(insert adjective of your choice here)



We also took a little video to give you a good idea of the magnitude of these caves. I apologize once more for my tired and sweaty demeanor. Rob seems to always bring the camera out when I’m absolutely exhausted from the heat!



And what’s crazier than a troupe of monkeys who just hung out in the trees right beside the walkway?



So there you have the Ajanta caves. We bused back to Jalgaon (though in retrospect we should have continued on to Aurangabad to see the Ellora caves, allegedly just as spectacular….for all those travelers out there, there’s a tip! We already have quite the list of places to visit next time we come to India, since a short two months is really not even near long enough). Then onto another train, and the next stop was Mumbai! And that will be coming up next :)

P.S. I just updated the Maps section of the site, under the Info heading, in case you guys are curious to see what our route has been. I can't believe how much ground we've covered in two months! 

Category: Adventures

Tags: ajanta, buddha, buddhism, bus trip, carving, india, photography, statue, temple, travel