Rihanna's India visit to Anant Ambani's grand wedding: Celebrity photographer reveals rare behind-the-scenes moments

From Rihanna’s playful Phoolon Ki Holi at Ambanis to Arjun Tendulkar's wedding, photographer Himanshu Patel opens up on what really happened behind the lens.

Behind every viral image and grand celebration are countless unseen moments and a photographer who’s quietly catching them all as they unfold.

In an exclusive interview with HT Lifestyle, Himanshu Patel, celebrity photographer and founder of Epic Stories, opens up about shooting everything from Rihanna’s visit to the Ambanis’ to high-profile weddings like Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, Arjun Tendulkar and Saaniya Chandok. He shares what really happens behind the frames the world eventually sees.

Excerpts from the interview:

How was your experience of capturing Rihanna? What was she like off-camera at the Ambani gathering?

Genuinely warm and present. What stayed with me wasn't her stardom, it was how openly she received the experience. There's a kind of grace that comes when someone steps into an unfamiliar culture with curiosity instead of distance, and that's what we saw. As a photographer, we're trained to read people quickly, and she was simply... there. Taking it in. That made our job beautiful.

Did Rihanna interact with you or your team during the event? Tell us more about that experience.

Our work depends on becoming invisible. The best compliment a photographer can receive at an event like this is that no one remembers we were there, because that's when the real moments happen. That said, Rihanna was incredibly generous with us throughout the day. There were many moments where she smiled at our cameras, posed effortlessly, and let us in.

During Phoolon Ki Holi, especially, she was having the time of her life, completely playful, throwing petals at everyone around her, fully in the joy of it. At one point, she playfully threw flowers right onto my camera lens, and that frame ended up becoming one of the most talked-about images from her India visit. Moments like that aren't planned, they're given, and they happen only when someone is genuinely enjoying themselves. That's what we got to witness.

What was happening behind the scenes when you captured that viral flower shower moment with Rihanna at the Ambanis'?

Phoolon Ki Holi is one of those rituals where you almost don't need to direct anything. The petals, the music, the laughter do the work for you. Our job was to anticipate, not to construct. We positioned ourselves to let the moment breathe, to catch the in-between glances and the unguarded joy. The frames that go viral are almost always the ones where no one is performing. That's the secret of this kind of work.

What was the most unforgettable moment you captured at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding?

Honestly, the moments I carry from that wedding aren't the grand ones, those have been seen by the world already. What stays with me is the other side of it.

We saw a grateful father who stood still after listening to his son's words, his chest swollen with pride and love. We witnessed the gaze of a mother, full of tenderness, as she saw her son stepping into his new chapter. We were awestruck by a dancing bride, stepping into a dream that felt straight out of heaven. We saw a groom radiant with joy, surrounded by people who clearly loved him deeply.

The world will remember the grandeur. What we will carry with us, long after the lights have dimmed and the music has faded, is the simple, unadulterated essence of love, love for those who matter most, love that transcends time and circumstance.

That's what we were really there to film. The rest, the world has already seen.

What's one moment from Anant Ambani's wedding that the public didn't see but you'll never forget?

I'd love to share one, but those moments aren't really mine to give away. The privilege of being inside a family's wedding is also a responsibility. The things we witness in private stay private unless the family chooses to share them. What I can say is that the moments the world hasn't seen are often the most beautiful ones, and the family will always have them, preserved exactly as they happened. That's what we do.

What's the biggest challenge while shooting a wedding as grand as the Ambanis'?

The challenge of any large wedding isn't logistics, those can be planned. The real challenge is keeping the emotional intimacy alive when you're working at scale. When there are hundreds of guests, multiple stages, international press, you can easily lose the thread of why you're there. Our discipline is to constantly come back to the couple, to the family, to the moment. The size of the wedding shouldn't change the soul of the photographs.

What was the most special moment you captured at Sachin Tendulkar's son's wedding?

The most special moments at any wedding are the ones between a parent and a child, and that wedding had its share of them. I'll leave the specifics to the family. What I'll say is that documenting a wedding in a family that the country has watched for decades is a reminder that even the most public people have deeply private moments, and our work is to honour those.

Out of everyone you've photographed, who made you feel starstruck?

Honestly? The grooms and brides we've never heard of. There's something about photographing a regular couple on the most important day of their life, without an entourage, without cameras outside, just them, that hits harder than any celebrity shoot. That's where Epic Stories began, and that's still where I feel the most. The big names are an honour, but the real work, the work that made me a photographer, is in those rooms.