Catching up with Deven, Heema and Bharat

Deven, Heema, their kids and Bharat were all in town over the July 4th weekend, so we made some plans to do brunch with them at Comparis On The Park in Plymouth before heading out to a graduation party and then later to meet Megha and Nihar. We hadn’t seen Deven and Heema in about 3 years, so it was good catching up with them.

Here are some pics from this afternoon – little Vidya eating her ice cream:

My favorite shot from the afternoon – such a cutie!

Sid was a great kid and gave me lots of smiles:

After brunch, we took a walk by the park in Plymouth:

A nice shot of dad playing with his son:

Vidya fell asleep after a while:

A shot of all of us finishing our brunch:

It was really great catching up with Deven, Heema and Bharat and seeing the kids. We should definitely make an effort to make plans to take a yearly trip somewhere guys. Let’s work on that! Have a safe flight back and keep in touch!

Shardul and Family Photo Shoot

Our friends Shardul and Anita wanted me to take photos of them and their family at a park here in Michigan. Shardul’s grandfather, who is 92 years old was visiting and they wanted pictures with him. The man looked amazing for being 92 years old!

Here are some pics from the day…

Look at how cute Sofia is!

She was such a ham! She posed and smiled and laughed throughout the shoot, sometimes even giving me this look like “Whatcha lookin’ at?!”

Here’s a shot of Jaisen – he just got his green belt (2nd degree) in Taekowndo, so he was really happy about that. But it was really hard getting him to look at the camera:

A shot of the entire family:

A fun shot of father and son:

A dramatic shot of Anita and Shardul:

I have a lot of really nice pics from this shoot – too many to post. But it was a lot of fun and hopefully Shardul and Anita will like the pics.

Off to a park in Novi to celebrate Father’s Day. Wishing all the dads out there a very Happy Father’s Day!

Deven Pimputkar – 12 Days Old

So last week, I posted saying that Sharmila and I photographed 12 day old Deven, our friend Samir’s newborn. I love photographing newborns because they are amazing at that age – just so tiny and fragile and wrinkly and cute! The day before, Sharmila and I planned out the props and we went and bought quite a few things. Deven was a trooper – we put him through a LOT in terms of props and plopping him on mats and chairs and even a weighing scale, but it was all in the name of getting some really cute pictures, so hopefully Deven won’t hold a grudge

Here are some of the pictures that we took – how cute is this little guy?!

My favorite shot of the day – I would enlarge this one for sure.

The little guy was in a deep sleep in the early part of the shoot.

Love his tiny little wrinkly hands!

Love this shot – he woke up for a few seconds as Sharmila was tying the bow on him:

Samir and Avani are both Michigan fans, so we had to take this shot:

Great shot of his smushed little lips:

Here he is on a weighing scale. I REALLY wanted an old school weighing scale – the kind you use in grocery stores which has a round dial and a hanging pan. Samir and Nirav looked all over for such a scale and couldn’t find one, so Nirav managed to get this one instead, which we had to make do with. Nonetheless, it made for a great picture:

Hopefully Samir and Avani will like the pictures. We had a a lot of fun shooting the images (the shoot lasted for 3 hours!), but it was worth it in the end.

Anyone else having babies? I love photographing newborns, so let me know. The best time to take pictures is while they are less than 10 days old.

I want to thank my beautiful wife for helping me with the props and coming along with me to the shoot to help out. Could not do these photo shoots without her help.

Until next time…

Sneak Peek – A few pictures from the weekend photo shoot

I did 2 photo shoots this weekend. One was a surprise birthday party and one was photographing a little munchkin (about 12 days old). This post is a sneak peek of a few pictures. Stay tuned for more pics next weekend!

First up is a pic of this little man with amazing hazel eyes. He was such a ham! He did the same pose for every shot that we took with his family. He was asleep before I arrived, but once he saw me taking pictures at the party, he woke up and followed me around and would be the first to pose every time I asked him to be in a pic.

This little girl is his sister and loved taking pictures too:

The 2nd photo shoot was of little Deven – our friend Samir and Avani’s little bundle of joy. We spent a lot of time trying to capture some really cute pictures. Sharmila helped with the pics, but this time she did not get pooped on! The little guy did poop and pee during the shoot, but it was reserved for his mommie!

I’ll be posting a lot more of little Deven next week, but here’s a teaser pic of the little cutie. We had a ton of props at the shoot and it made for some really cute pictures. Look at those smushed lips and baby smooth skin!

As usual, had a lot of fun taking pictures at both the shoots. I’ll be posting more pics of this little cutie next week. Time to go to sleep, got an early flight to NYC tomorrow morning.

The Wedding of Jennifer and Dennis

I photographed the wedding of Jenn and Dennis at Stony Creek yesterday. They are a gorgeous couple and were very laid back and fun to work with. Sharmila accompanied me to the wedding shoot. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday (which makes it really hard to get good pictures because of the harsh light of the sun causing all sorts of shadows). Sharmila and I drove out to the Royal Park Hotel (RPH) where Jenn was getting ready. RPH is where we got married, so it was great going back there and it brought back memories of our wedding day.

We had planned an hour to do a photo shoot at the RPH, but Jenn was running late and we never got to shoot those pictures, which is a shame because I had planned to take some creative, dramatic shots of them. It’s next to impossible to create drama in shots once the wedding starts because things happen so quickly from that point on that you have little time for light setups and such, so I wanted to take the time to create some extra nice images with the right lighting, etc, but unfortunately due to Jenn running late, we had to skip over that.

Jenn did not need me to take pictures of her getting ready, so while she was getting ready upstairs, I shot some pictures of the groom downstairs in the restaurant. I like this shot of Dennis – it looks like he’s modeling a suit in a magazine or something

Dennis was funny and had a great sense of humor. Sharmila asked him to go behind the bar and pretend to guzzle beer from the tap and it made for a fun picture:

A shot of Jenn and Dennis seeing each other for the 1st time:

Jenn looked beautiful – love the details on her gown:

We drove from the RPH to Stony Creek, where they were getting married. Once we got there, I posed the couple and took some quick shots of them before the guests started arriving:

I love this next shot of the 2 of them – it’s sexy and romantic against a beautiful backdrop:

Wanted to finish with a shot of this cutie – look at those gorgeous baby blue eyes!

It was a pretty hectic day and it was tough trying to singlehandedly capture everything from the key moments to the surroundings and the guests to the little details at the party, but it was fun and we managed to get some good shots despite the fact that Jenn and Dennis were constantly all over the place and being pulled in many different directions.

Thanks to my wife for coming along with me and paying attention to the details. It was fun and I’m looking forward to shooting more weddings this year. On a separate note, I have been recently hired by someone else to shoot an event at Tribute, am upscale restaurant in Michigan, so I’m looking forward to doing my 1st event photography next weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend Brunch in NYC

Some of us went in to the city to Paradou for brunch. On the way there, I saw this fine specimen driving down the cobbled streets:

Paradou has unlimited champagne with your brunch, so you know they’re asking for trouble!

The front of the restaurant where we were standing in line to get in.

They have all sorts of champagne flavors – this one is their house specialty – ParadouX

A pic of the ladies – Shivani, Fatema and Sharmila:

Fatema guzzling down some water to hydrate while Rohit poses

Sushi Samba in NYC

Hung out with Jeet, Neetu, Rashmi and Sreesh at Sushi Samba on Park and 20th. Great food (their lamb dish was great!) and good ambience. The service was good and the prices were reasonable.

Their orange flavored Sambatini was really good!

After dinner, we all hung out by the bar and had some drinks.

At the end of the night, Sharmila and I decided to take a stroll. We walked by this fire truck standing inside the station.

Walking around the city and taking in the sights was a lot of fun. Sharmila and I plan to try out new restaurants in the city and just enjoy the city experience as much as we can while we are here.

New York New York

Went to Liberty State Park this evening for a walk. There are many cities with beautiful skylines, but the NYC skyline never ceases to impress me.

Nirav and Claudia’s Wedding

Nirav got married yesterday to Claudia at the Shenandoah Country Club. It had been a while since we’d gone to a friend’s wedding, so it was a lot of fun. It always seems to bring back memories of our wedding day and how hectic and crazy things get on that day, yet how it all flies by so quickly.

Nirav and Claudia are a super nice couple and look great together. The wedding was superb and everything went really well and it was great to see both the Indian and Italian wedding ceremonies. Nirav got really lucky with his Baraat (groom’s procession)- it was really cloudy and overcast, but the rain held out and his Baraat happened without a hitch. Samir gave a great speech at the reception and Nirav’s dad’s speech in Italian was fun to hear!  Claudia is a great girl and her family is really nice as well. Her dad seems like a lot of fun (he had a great time on the dance floor at the reception). We also found out where Claudia gets her genes from – her mom. Her mom looked amazing! Speaking of amazing, their dessert spread at the reception was the best I’ve ever seen! It went on for miles!

I took some pictures of Nirav and the crowd at the Baraat, but I did not want to come in the way of the professionals at the wedding and the reception, so I did not take that many pictures of the couple once the Baraat was over. Instead of putting up all the pictures here on the blog and have you scroll down to view all of them, I’ve added them to a gallery on my professional website so that you can see them in a gallery with music.

Here is how you can see the pictures:

1) Go to: www.photographybysuman.com

2) Click “clients” at the bottom left of the screen once you enter the main site

3) Enter “nirav” as the password (without the “”)

4) The gallery will load

Thanks Nirav and Claudia for inviting us to your wedding. We had a great time! You guys are great for each other and Sharmila and I wish you both the very best!

Ariya’s Naming Ceremony

Our friend Amruta (who was the 1st person I met when I 1st came to Detroit), just had a beautiful baby girl – Ariya. Amruta was in town for Ariya’s naming ceremony and she had invited us to the event, so Sharmila and I stopped by there after stopping by Tamanna’s for Milaan’s birthday party. Here’s a pic of baby Ariya fast asleep:

And here is a pic of another cutie – Anya:

Sharmila met a lot of people at the party that she had not seen in a long time, so that was fun. Thanks Amruta for inviting us. It was great seeing you, Pinto and baby Ariya!