A Decade with Shashank & Deepti
South Indian Family Photography UK

Some relationships don't begin with a brief.

They begin with a moment — a look across a room, a laugh that nobody planned for, a quiet afternoon that somehow becomes the photograph you keep returning to years later.

I first met Shashank and Deepti at their wedding. That was the beginning. I was photographing South Indian families in Coventry and across the UK at the time.

I didn't know then that I'd still be documenting this family years later. That I'd watch their daughter grow from a newborn into the girl she is now — full of personality, completely at home in front of a camera, wholly herself in every session we've done together. That we'd share milestones and also the ordinary Sundays that end up meaning the most.

Some bonds quietly grow with you through milestones, laughter, and quiet pauses. This is one of those bonds.

Every family's story starts somewhere. Theirs started at a wedding — two people choosing each other, surrounded by everyone they loved most.

A South Indian wedding ceremony carries so much in it. The rituals, the flowers, the moment when the couple look at each other and something shifts. This was a Telugu wedding — the ceremony had all the richness and detail that Hyderabad celebrations are known for. I try to stay close enough to feel it and far enough back to let it happen naturally.

I didn't photograph their wedding knowing I'd still be photographing their family years later. That's never something you can plan for. But that's exactly what happened.

Then came their firstborn.

One thing this kind of work teaches you is that family doesn't just mean the two people who started it. It means the grandparents who drove hours to be there, the cousins who appear in the photographs without being asked, the aunts who hold the baby while the parents get a moment's rest.

This was one of the most striking things about photographing this family over the years — watching how the people around them showed up. How the generations connected. How their daughter grew into someone who clearly belongs entirely to herself, while also being very clearly part of something larger.

She has been the consistent thread through every session since. And she keeps getting more herself — more comfortable, more present, more completely her.

That's what years of documentary family photography shows you. Not just how a child grows, but who they are becoming.

The most recent sessions were at their home. And home sessions are different from anything else.

There's no venue, no backdrop, no brief. Just the family as they actually are — the light through their own windows, the furniture they chose, the corners of a life built together.

A daughter laughing while her mum does her hair. Reading side by side on the floor. Getting ready together in the morning. These are the moments that don't have a name — they just have a feeling.

This is what a long-term family photography relationship looks like. Not posed. Not performed. Just real.

When you've documented a family over time, the camera becomes almost invisible. The daughter stops wondering what to do. The parents stop thinking about how they look. Everyone just exists — and that's when the best photographs happen.

One of the sessions included the grandparents. And this is always worth photographing.

The dynamic between a grandparent and a grandchild is completely different from anything else a camera captures. There's a particular kind of joy in it — free from the self-consciousness adults sometimes carry, full of a warmth that's hard to manufacture.

Mini Momentz photographs families across the UK and often documents multi-generational sessions for South Indian families who want to include parents visiting from India, or simply grandparents who are part of the daily life of the household.

And now there's a second baby on the way.

We've already done the maternity session. The daughter who is going to be the best big sister. The bump. The quiet moment in the window with the banana leaf behind the curtains and the light coming through just so.

Some photographs don't need any explanation. This is one of them.

Soon we'll photograph the first birthday, the tiny hands, the first year moving at its impossible pace.

And somewhere in between, the ordinary moments that families forget to preserve — until they look back years later and realise those were the ones that mattered most.

This family was never loud about their story. But it kept blooming — and we kept showing up to photograph it.

When you photograph a family across years, something changes in the work.

You stop capturing events and start capturing a story. The before and after. The version of a family who were still finding their shape, and the version who have settled completely into who they are.

With Shashank and Deepti, the sessions feel different now than they did at the beginning. Less like work and more like spending an afternoon with people I know well. I notice things a new photographer would miss. I know when to stay back and when to move. I know what they look like when they're actually laughing versus when they're performing it.

That knowledge takes time to earn. But the photographs it produces are worth it.

Mini Momentz documents families across the UK — from South Indian weddings and cultural ceremonies through to maternity sessions, newborn photography, first birthdays and ongoing family storytelling. We believe the most meaningful photography happens when a family trusts you enough to forget you're there.