I shot Bollywood superstar Ranveer Singh for the Grazia India Cover March 2019 edition. I have worked with Ranveer several times in the past, he’s a good friend of mine, his energy is explosive and rather contagious.
His presence lifts everyone in the room This was one of Ranveer‘s first shoots after his wedding and his smash-hit movies Simmba and Gully Boy so he was in a very relaxed, chilled-0ut mood and had a lot of fun with the shoot. He was grooving to Latin music throughout the shoot and the shoot was in a very cool, light vibe all that afternoon. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer shoot.
Grazia sent me a mood board with Cuban references and I wanted this to look like a sun-drenched lazy Havana afternoon. The set had beautiful little Cuban tiles for the floor, an antique teal/blue paint, rustic furniture and Cuban photographs up on the wall, all of which rightly added an antique twist and set the perfect ambience. In a studio, I usually work with strobe lights but I made an instant decision to shoot this with continuous light this time as I felt the light quality would be different, I would get a softer depth of field and it would look more cinematic.
Senior Fashion Editor Pasham Alwani had put together some very cool Cuban inspired outfits. Some vibrant prints and guayabera shirts matched with plain vests and some light knitted trousers.
Literally, everything was spot-on! After the first few shots, we all instantly knew that we had the cover photographs we were looking for and the entire shoot was a breeze!
Photo assistant: Ankit Sharma
