FAMILY PORTRAITS
At home or at a park nearby, everybody in their Eid clothes, unhurried and without anybody having to travel far.
HOME › EID AND RAMADAN
One or two days a year, and everybody is dressed for it.
Almost none of them shoot Eid, and it is not because nobody wants it.
Look at what photographers in this state advertise through the year and you will find autumn foliage, Santa, the Easter bunny and holiday cards. The families who spend a fortnight preparing for Eid are simply not being spoken to at all, so most of them end up with a few phone pictures taken in a hallway and nothing else.
That is a strange gap, because Eid is exactly the occasion that deserves photographing properly. Everybody is in new clothes, the whole family is in one place, and unlike a birthday it happens once or twice a year rather than every other weekend.
Paterson holds one of the largest Muslim communities in the country, and hardly anybody photographs Eid there.
South Paterson alone accounts for a remarkable share of the state's Muslim population, and Clifton and Passaic sit alongside it. Jersey City, Newark and Elizabeth each hold large and varied communities of their own. Further south, Edison, Piscataway, Old Bridge, New Brunswick and South Brunswick carry the South Asian Muslim community around the Oak Tree Road corridor.
I cover all of it. The four central counties, Monmouth, Middlesex, Ocean and Somerset, carry no travel fee at all. Passaic, Hudson, Essex and Union each have a flat published figure charged once for the visit, listed on the pricing page alongside everything else.
At home or at a park nearby, everybody in their Eid clothes, unhurried and without anybody having to travel far.
Wherever the mosque is happy for photographs, following exactly what they ask about where to stand and when to stop.
Stalls, food, henna, clothes and the crowd. These photograph beautifully and hardly any of them are covered.
At home or at a banquet hall anywhere in the state, covered from arrival through to the end of the evening.
During Ramadan, at home, at the mosque or at a venue, at the hardest hour of the day for light.
Companies across New Jersey host these properly now, with the room set and speakers, and almost none are photographed.
Every other price on this site is published. This one cannot honestly be.
A quiet family portrait session at home and a four hundred person mosque iftar running across two halls are not remotely the same job, and printing a single number for both would mean walking it back the moment I heard the details. So this is the one thing I quote.
What decides it, in roughly this order:
Everything else stays exactly as it is elsewhere on the site. Travel is free in the four central counties and a published flat fee everywhere else. Photographs arrive within five to seven business days. Half up front holds the date and the balance is due when the photographs are ready. The licence never expires.
I work alone. There are no assistants and no second photographer.
That suits most Eid bookings perfectly well. It does not suit a gathering where the men and women are in separate rooms and both need covering at the same moment, and it does not suit a family who would prefer a woman photographer. If either applies to you, you need somebody else, and I would far rather say so now than take the booking and disappoint you on the day.
The second thing is simply timing. Eid falls on one or two days and every family wants the same few hours. Book at least a month ahead if you can, because unlike a wedding there is no alternative date to move to.
The date, roughly what you are doing, how many people and where you are. A fixed price comes back within a few hours, and half up front holds the day.
Nikah, walima and everything around them, booked by the day.
The other half of the calendar, from Navratri through to Vaisakhi.
How a family session runs and what each length includes, with prices published.
Edison, Iselin and Woodbridge, with no travel fee anywhere in it.
Fifty four towns across the state, with the travel fee for each county.
Four quick questions and I will send you a price.