MOST couples want their wedding and engagement pictures to be memorable and capture the beautiful chemistry between them, which wedding photographer Vinoth Raj Pillai strives to achieve with his breathtaking shots.
In fact, one of his pictures was shortlisted for the prestigious Junebug magazine Top 50 engagement photographs in the world in 2019.
The shortlisted picture shows a bride and groom who just got engaged, hopping gleefully at a doorway.
“I wanted their picture to have a child-like quality,“ said 37-year-old Vinoth.
He wanted to show that the couple were entering a new phase of their relationship with so much fun and excitement.
“I do not want my pictures to look beautiful,” he said, adding that his aim is to tell stories of the couples via the photos he takes of them.
To achieve this, he makes it a point to interview the couple and listen to their stories from the time they met to their wedding day.
“I want to understand their stories and their chemistry.”
He also asks the bride and groom about their relationship with their parents and their siblings. At one wedding, he learnt that the bride was very close to her father, after the death of her mother. On the wedding day, he took some photos of them together.
“Both father and daughter teared during the photoshoot,” he said, adding that the father passed away two months after his daughter’s wedding.
“The bride was really grateful that I had captured some beautiful moments of her relationship with her father, which she will always treasure.”
Vinoth said his assignments have also given him the opportunity to travel overseas. One memorable trip was to New Zealand, where the couple met while studying there.
A helicopter took the couple and him to Roy’s Peak and he managed to capture some stunning shots of them against the mountain.
He has also travelled to Indonesia, Iceland and India on such photography assignments.
On the best advice he has for youngsters planning to be wedding photographers, he said: “These days, everyone has a sophisticated handphone camera. They can easily take pictures of weddings. You need to offer something different if you want to be a wedding photographer. You can only offer something different if you think out of the box.”
Vinoth worked as an engineer for six years before becoming a full-time wedding photographer in 2015.
“I was doing something I did not love.”
As a photography enthusiast, he decided to put his skill to good use and started by being a part-time wedding photographer.
“I felt my part-time job was making me happier than my permanent job,” said Vinoth, who graduated with a Bachelor of Electronics, majoring in Telecommunications.
But he had second thoughts about leaving his permanent, well-paying job. However, his wife, who works in marketing, encouraged him to follow his heart and become a full-time photographer.
“I saved up six months of my salary before quitting,” he said.
“I even had a Plan B, where I thought I would be driving for Grab while pursuing my dream to be a wedding photographer. But my wife did not want me to be a Grab driver, she wanted me to focus on pursuing my dream.
With her backing and confidence in his talent, Vinoth was able to pursue his dream and make a successful career of it.
