Hello Hello world! First off, before I ramble on about me and how I became a wedding photographer career, I just want to take a moment to first praise the babes from With Grace & Gold for creating this dream website for me! I could LITERALLY write a 10 page essay on how much I love them and appreciate them, but! I’ll spare you that moment for some other time!
Being that this is my very first blog post, I wanted to share little more about my journey through this crazy passion of mine and some fun facts that have led me to this very point.
1. In college, I studied Graphic Design and within my major I took one photography course…and failed. Go figure! It was the only course through out my 6 years in college that I received a failing grade in. Life has a funny way of surprising you, wouldn’t you agree?
2. After college, I took a backpacking trip with friends through Europe, there I developed the photography bug. I mean, how could you not? Eiffel tower, Swiss alps, the Vatican etc. I really felt like I wanted to capture it all! Once the trip ended and I came back home and faced my unemployed reality. I had to look for a job! I was fortunate to meet the person that changed my career path FOREVER soon after! He was a wedding photographer, friend of a friend who was looking to bring on an assistant for his Indian Wedding photography business. My friend told me about it, and I quickly said “I’ll do it!” He taught me everything! And when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING! I had never used a professional DSLR in my life, so you can imagine how big the learning curve must have been. With in a few months he promoted me from assistant to second shooter, then after a few more months to Main shooter. By this time I was OBSESSED with photography! He taught me the craft that changed my life forever! His name is Ahmed, and for the first 2 years of my career I specialized in South Asian Wedding photography. You can find his beautiful work here!
3. After working with Ahmed for a couple of years, I invited my older sister Moni in to the mix to take a peek at how fun it was to document these beautiful weddings. She too fell in love! Soon after, we decided to create a business together! I would do photography and she would do video as her background is in Broadcasting and knew quite a bit of cinematography. Together we created Moni & Adri Weddings.
4. Both Moni & I started the business here in L.A and after a year in business we moved to Cancun MX (there are tons of details of our journey that I am skipping over because this blog would just be TOO long! But I’d be happy to fill you in through future blogs) There we specialized in Destination Wedding Photography!
5. After living in Cancun Mx. for 3 years, (paradise!) and running a successful business there together, we then decided to expand the bizz back to our hometown of Los Angeles! Which brings me to this point in time! Moni, is currently running our Destination wedding business out there and I have now created the Simply Adri Photography brand which specializes in California Weddings + lifestyle photography, and I couldn’t be happier!! Woo Woo!!
Phew, I am out of breath after typing so much! Hopefully, these facts help you get to know me a little better in my career path as a wedding photographer, and now I’d LOVE to get to know you!!
xoxo,
Adri
