What our crew carries on a wedding day

A wedding cannot be repeated, so the most important thing our crew carries is a second copy of everything. A camera that fails during the pheras cannot be fixed in time. Here is how a typical crew packs for a three-day wedding in Udaipur.

Each of our photographers carries two camera bodies, one on each shoulder, with different lenses, usually a wide zoom and a longer lens for candid moments from a distance. Each body records to two memory cards at once, so a failed card does not lose a single frame. Our filmmakers carry two cinema cameras between them, a gimbal for moving shots, two small cameras for fixed angles during the rituals and wireless microphones for the vows and speeches.

Power is the most common problem on long days, so we carry far more than we need. A three-day wedding usually means about 40 camera batteries, chargers for the hotel room and a portable power bank big enough to charge the drone controller. Every battery is numbered and rotated.

Then there is the small kit that saves the day: lens cloths, rain covers in case of an unseasonal shower, gaffer tape, spare microphone batteries, safety pins and a small torch for dark mandaps. Our lead also carries a printed copy of the day’s schedule and the family photo list. Each night, the cards are copied twice before anyone sleeps, once to a drive in the crew’s case and once to the studio, and they are not reused until a third copy is safe. It is slow, unglamorous work, and the part we are proudest of.