Lady in Red

” Hi,
You photos are looking very beautiful. Can we organize an 1-2 hour photowalk in Pune at 21st or 22nd April? If yes, how much will to cost per hour? I’ll be alone, and, unfortunately, can only deal with you en English 🙂

Also, I don’t know Pune well enough, I’d be happy if you suggest a few authentic places to make creative photos.

If possible, please, respond me on e-mail, as far as I don’t have a local sim-card yet.”

This was the inquiry we received via our website about a month and a half back. Considering that the above inquiry was accompanied by a Russian number, the first thought in our head was ‘scammer’! Nevertheless we played along, albeit carefully, exchanging several emails. Alarm bells went off in our heads once again when the supposed ‘client’ asked for our bank account details to make the payment. Instead we proposed a meeting to ‘discuss the shoot’ first, half expecting that nothing would come out of it and the ‘scammer’ would just give up. To our surprise we received an affirmative response to the meeting request. A meeting was fixed on a weekday evening in a hotel lobby, not too far from our office. Still unsure what we were getting into, Sarita & Anshum decided to go for the meeting together. And that is how we met Nadia

5 minutes with this unassumingly charming lady and her constant smile that was both infectious and disarming… and Sarita and Anshum were laughing about all their suspicions and inhibitions up until this point. Turns out that Nadia is a Business Analyst from Russia who works with an IT company. The company had brought her in to work with the Indian team for 10 days and while here she wanted to have a set of casual pictures taken in very typically local places, with local people. She wanted the pictures to be a mix of glamorous and matter-of-fact. It was what she referred to as a “photowalk”.

The locations we narrowed in on were Shaniwarwada and Mandai in Pune. Considering that she was white & had model-like gorgeous looks, we knew we would get a lot of undesirable attention at these places. But then how much more Puneri can places get than the two locations we’d chosen? We decided to wing it!  We tried to warn her about the atmosphere at these places and how it would be preferable that she dress a little conservatively so that we didn’t have to double up as ‘bouncers’ during the shoot. But Nadia wasn’t having any of that! What she chose to don for the shoot instead was a knee-length red dress that you could spot a mile away 😀 God help us!

At one point some kids asked to take a selfie with her, and although we were reluctant about it, she was happy to oblige. But then random groups of adults, mostly grown men, almost started queuing up for selfies with her and that’s when we kind of lost our cool. Thankfully though, we were able to take control of the situation soon enough and finished the rest of the shoot without any problems. And thats how a 3 hour shoot with a gorgeous visitor from Russia turned into an adventure from start to finish. For Nadia and her Red Dress, we call this series “Lady in Red”