The Merchants of Bollywood – Press Call 12th January 2010

My friend Nandi’s birthday falls on January 3rd. As a consequence, she very rarely celebrates with a party. This year, however, she turned 40 (sorry Nandi) and decided to throw a “Bollywood”-themed party. The party was a massive success and we all had a great time (the pics can be found on my flickr stream). At the party, I happened to meet a lady called Shobha. She told me about her magazine – India Se – and was lamenting both the cost of photography, and the difficulty in finding photographers. We had a chat about me doing a shoot for her, exchanged business cards, and that was it… I thought. Then yesterday I get a call from Shobha asking me to come to the Theatre today to shoot a press call for a show that’s opening here tonight: The Merchants of Bollywood.

I agreed, and met her there today at 1:45pm.

The press call was an absolute blast – great fun, very high-energy performances from the extremely talented cast. All in all, a fantastic first professional photography assignment – and I hope I got some shots that Shobha can use in her magazine.

The show was started with some introductions and a little talk about the show and its’ origins:

 

I will admit to not knowing who these people are, and for that, I apologise. Their names were used, but the performances that followed blew them out of my mind… here’s some of the shots that I managed to get:

 

 

 

 

There was a short intermission whilst the dancers re-energised themselves and prepared for the next number. It was equally spectacular:

 

 

 

 

My wife loves this next pic – it just looks like they’re having a great time… pure Bollywood!

Once the dancing was concluded. The director (I think) gathered the cast and producers on stage for a group photo. Whilst they were getting in place, I took a shot of Shobha and her reporter in front of the stage.

The lady in pink in this next shot was trying to organise everybody on stage into position for the main photo – this guy was just having great fun mugging for the camera (he was already in position – everybody else was arranged around him).

Then, we finally got a couple of shots of everybody:

 

This is Vaibhavi Merchant – she’s the Choreographer and the show is named for both her and her father Hiralalji Merchant. An official photographer was taking shots on stage and I snuck up next to her to grab this:

Whilst we were waiting to interview Vaibhavi, we were lucky to catch a couple of technical rehearsals, me and another photographer who is working for the local promoter snapped a couple of naughty shots (I think we weren’t supposed to).

Then it was on with the interview:

 

Before a quick shot of the girls…

And we were done for the day. It was a great experience and I look forward to hearing what they think of my pics. I’m quite pleased with them… but I’m not an editor. :)