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  Ridhi Dogra and Raqesh Vashisth
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  Aamir Ali and Sanjeeda Sheikh
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  Debina Bonnerjee and Gurmeet Choudhry
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  Barkha Bisht and Indraneil Sengupta
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  Mohit Malik and Aditi Shirwaikar
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  Mouli Ganguly and Mazhar Sayyed
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  Sargun Mehta and Ravi Dubey
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  Daljeet Kaur and Shaleen Bhanot
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  Manav Gohil and Shweta Kawatra
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  Vivian Dsena-Vahbbiz Dorabjee

Pravin Talan started his career many years back with a cover shoot for GR8! TV Magazine and eventually went on to become one of the most celebrated fashion photographer in the country, even crossing international borders with his association with FTV and famous Taj Mahal project putting him in the league of world class photographers.

Years later he comes back to his roots, to shoot an exclusive tenth anniversary edition for GR8! catching the finest of the emotions in his unique poetic style. Here he talks about his experience of this shoot.


Behind the Scenes

I have always been in Love, with someone or something or with the idea of love. Last one month was an incredible journey for me, right into the hearts and lives of television’s most beautiful twenty people.

When Mr. Shashi Ranjan offered to photograph this exclusive feature for the tenth anniversary edition, I would have never let it pass for anything. Ten great stories featuring ten gorgeous couples who found love and their soul mates while pursuing their passion for acting. The theme of Love and Togetherness was born out of the fact that the magazine had spent ten years in togetherness with the Television industry.

While I was shooting, I would often be lost in the beauty of the emotion these couples shared. The happiness, the energy, the stolen glances, the slight tease and warm hugs, all flowed free and abundant. These lovely couples went that extra mile to ensure a beautiful photograph, a lifetime memory.

I remember Addite riding on Mohit Malik’s back on the Khandala hills, tickling him to make him laugh and then refusing to take cover when it started raining, rather she chose to hug him and soak in the moments of love; Barkha & Indraneil taking that dip in the pool in freezing cold water to create an extra-ordinary visual; Vivian & Vahbbiz braving all the wet sand & grass, walking bare feet, smiling even when Vivian hurt his back as a marble slab he was sitting on broke but even at that moment he was more worried about Vahbbiz; and then Ravi who held Sargun’s weight on his tummy in a complicated shot, for nearly thirty minutes, just because he loved that concept so much.

What you would see across these pages is the purity of the extra-ordinary relationship these couples share. I can recall a hundred pretty moments; Aamir would gently keep cleaning the hair falling on Sanjeeda’s face so it would not hide her beauty; Manav & Shweta who would keep taking out time to attend their daughter and then rush out again to shoot, creating their own magical moments, dancing on the edge of the wall without fear, since I got a great skyline from that point and they wanted only the best.

When I walked into Raqesh’s house, I was amazed to learn that he was an excellent painter too and had made a beautiful portrait of Ridhi and gifted to her. I decided then and there to do an additional shot ‘the Painter and his Muse’. In moments such as these, you turn into something beyond a photographer and become a part of someone’s life as you witness the magic of companionship unfolding right in front of your eyes. Gurmeet precariously tried to balance Debina on his legs in a shot rich in fun moment and so did Mazher & Mouli act like two teenagers, lying together with arched bodies, as if they met just yesterday. I can never forget the love in Shaleen’s eyes, as he lay next to Daljeet on the rug, with candles all around, putting a hand on her tummy and conversing in whisper to the child in her tummy. A soon to be father, he was glowing as much as Daljeet.

When I started working on this project, I thought it was an easy shoot. It was anything but easy. To say simple things in a beautiful manner is more complicated. It was a humongous task as far as coordinating the shoot was concerned. Most of the actors were shooting from 25-30 days a month for their daily shows. In the editorial meeting we had decided that the look and feel of the shoot had to be very fresh and mostly outdoor pictures, or even if shot indoor, it had preferably to be as much natural light to be used, to retain the freshness in the images.

Someone forgot to mention it was monsoons and the skies would be pouring relentlessly. I was given an absolutely free hand to conceptualize the shots and choose the locations as required. But sometimes having a free hand becomes additional responsibility. Within a week I realized it wasn’t about my giving ten days for the ten shoots, but I would have to practically say no to all other work, to accommodate the dates of the actors, as everything was now a last minute notice and subject to their availability.

So what started as a quick ‘ten-shoots’ feature turned out to be a month long affair! On top there was practically no light for outdoor photography, it wasn’t just cloudy but raining most of the time. Rains would spoil clothes, make-up, hair, shoes and the equipment. And that’s exactly what kept happening on most of the days we shot, particularly when we took four couples to Khandala.

Khandala in monsoons is considered to be heaven. It was perfect setting for romance. Lush green mountains, rain soaked winds and clouds floating low enough to occasionally kiss your face. They would often give a quick burst of shower and then go quiet again, but that fifteen minute of pouring water would make us all run into the arms of whatever shelter available, not to mention the poor visibility most of the time, making it difficult to actually get a clean shot. So after the experience of first one hour, we decided to enjoy it rather than fight it.

I told my assistants to go and buy large polythene sheets available to be used as rain cover, and the team of nearly ten of us, used that overhead and walked around in the hills finding locations and places and shot while it rained! By the time it was evening, half the equipment had started malfunctioning because of all the moisture. It was a beautiful experience, so nothing really mattered. The weather and the scenic beauty of the place had brought out the romance in each one of us and that made the pictures just so easy.

Every picture, every moment for me in this shoot has been unique. I wish the magazine had a hundred extra pages for this issue. The number of images that me and my photo editor Paul finally shortlisted are nearly five hundred and we need to use only fifty!

Actually nothing great can ever happen without an excellent team and I was surely blessed with that. Dharmishtha & Sachin were full of ideas all the time and my assistants Ashok & Faruk made sure I found enough light at the locations, cleverly mixing flashlight with available natural light.

The most amazing part of this entire shoot was that the photographs were all so real, and the simple reason being the moments shared between the couples were all real. They were simply living ‘love & togetherness’ they actually shared and all I had to do was capture it. Yet I was facing one of the biggest creative challenges and that was how to make the entire photo spread look different. It was meant to be a forty pages feature, with nearly fifty images to be used, and each had to look different from the other, only then it would have had the desired visual appeal. The focus had at all times to be on the chemistry between the couple and that did not leave much scope to create images different from each other. But we did, and that I feel has been the greatest accomplishment out of this shoot.

- Pravin Talan


Photographed by Pravin Talan; Project Head: Dharmishtha Dagia; Video Director: Sachin Narkar; Fashion Stylists: Riddhi Shah, Monica Singh, Shalini Thakur; Make-Up: Aniruddha Sawant (Pappu), Hair Stylists: Surekha S Gangnaik & Laxmi; Photo Editor: Paul.

Special Thanks to Mr. G.S. Bawa (Bawa Villa, Khandala), Gulshan Arora (Sun N Sand, Juhu) and Aristro Hotel, Lonavala.