On Marigolds and Memory

Walk into any mandap in Uttar Pradesh and the first thing that reaches you is orange. Marigold ropes over doorways, marigold in the havan, marigold crushed underfoot by the end of the night and still fragrant the next morning.

For a wedding photographer, the marigold is a gift and a warning. A gift, because it throws warm bounced light onto every face beneath it, softer than any modifier we own. A warning, because a sensor left unmanaged will render that warmth as a wash and lose the skin beneath it.

So we grade for the skin first and let the flowers sit where they fall. A photograph of an Indian wedding that has been cooled into neutrality is technically clean and emotionally wrong — it is not what the room felt like.

Years later, colour is the fastest route back into a memory. Get the marigold right and the whole afternoon returns with it.