Drone photos create wedding buzz

They say marriages are made in heaven -- perhaps the view from the sky is better too! That may explain the new trend of nuptial proceeding being recorded by drones buzzing over the heads of guests. "People want to be a cut above the rest," explains Rati Saxena of FotoShaadi, a Bengaluru studio, little realising there's a pun buried in that statement. But yes, the grand Indian wedding now suddenly seems incomplete without a bird's-eye view of the glitzy proceedings.
"Compared to last year, 2015 has been a tremendous year for drone photography," says Lakshya Manwani, a Delhi photographer. Earlier aerial shots were possible only with jibs or from a helicopter, both with severe limitations, the first achieving a height of 25 ft at most, the latter running up an exorbitant tab. The drone is the easy way out. They can be bought for Rs 75,000-4 lakh and can soar 50 ft to 500 ft above the celebrations. But it's easier for lensmen to rent one for Rs 12,000-35,000 per day. And they do. As wedding chronicler Jerry Jacob in Delhi says, "A drone can add grandeur to the images of the already plush location of the wedding." Of course, the legality of using drones for such filming is quietly ignored.
Phagwara resident Gurdeep Singh Deepa cannot contain himself when he talks about his nephew's wedding a year ago. "We got a drone and it really added colour to the event," he enthuses. When so much social prestige hinges on the grandeur of the matrimonial arrangements, the 'added colour' is probably the green of envy. Rishab Sood, who runs the Candidates studio in south Delhi, recalls with much amusement a customer who, when negotiating the rates, discreetly enquired if he could get a discounted price to have a drone flying around without recording anything.
But for most, like Pardeep Luthra who recently married off his son in Amritsar, "A wedding is a time to spend." Equipped with ultra-high resolution (4K) cameras, zoom lenses and advanced stabilizers, the drones do provide a unique visual perspective of the ceremonies "The wide-angle and top-angle shots that you can achieve with drones are impossible with regular cameras," says Riyaz Abdul Razaak of Silon Talkies in Mumbai, which has filmed six weddings in the city so far.
Besides, you never know when an airborne camera might more handily meet the demands of customers. Lakshya Manwani almost shudders when he remembers a client who was flying in from California and wanted "a drone to catch up with the plane as it landed in Delhi, take a shot of him walking down the ramp, hurrying towards the exit gate and meeting his bride-to-be".
There's a desire for a fresh outlook even in the more regular images of the baraat, the jaimala rite and the saat phere. The easy availability of these contraptions, many of them of Chinese make, helps wedding imagers meet the clamour for exotic shots.
Of course, it's not as easy to film with a drone as, say, saying 'I do'. For one, the venue has to be expansive enough to allow for unhindered flight for a drone. "I feel using drones indoors - which most Indian weddings are - is a risky business," says Bengaluru freelance cinematographer Ashok V Raman, who owns two drones: a DJI Phantom and a custom-made drone. "Unlike outdoors, where the drone can be navigated by pre-programming the route using GPS, indoors it has to be manoeuvred manually with a remote device, which poses risks of dangerous crashes." In fact, when Silon Talkies first started using drones at Mumbai weddings, guests were afraid the flying machines would crash headlong into their perfectly coiffed hairdos, laughs Razaak. But with increasing use, everyone is savvier about these flying objects.
Then, there is also the small matter of the legality of using drones. No one seems to know for sure whether a drone is legitimate wedding paraphernalia or not. The confusion is confounded by the lack of a designated central authority to clear such shoots. Because they can come in the path of airline flights and for security reasons, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on October 7, 2014, did order that till DGCA formulated proper guidelines for the civil use of drones, no non-government agency, organization or individual could fly them in Indian civil airspace for any purpose.
However, enforcement is lax. "Permission has to be taken from local authorities but usually most drone operators don't go through the process," says Rajesh Luthra, a wedding photographer. Amritsar Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh declares that his force has no record of wedding planners or photographers using drones, and promises, "For now, there are no such guidelines. If we get them, we will implement them immediately." As for the service providers, one Mumbai photographer slyly says, "As long as clients manage the permissions, we don't have a problem." It's almost as if he is a character in 'Drone with the Wind' saying, "Frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn."

(with inputs from Dharvi Vaid, Yudhvir Rana, IP Singh, Mohit Behl, Mithila Phadke and Shrabonti Bagchi)