Nine frames from August. Photography at No. 9 Cenotaph Road, Teynampet.
Studio Nine is Meera Sundaram and Arjun Dhanapal. Meera started the studio in 2017 in a 1,400 sq ft floor above a tailor on Cenotaph Road, because of the window: it faces north, it is four metres wide, and the light in it does not move all day.
Portraits and product happen here, on paper seamless or by that window. Weddings and editorial happen wherever the couple or the story is, usually within a day’s drive of Chennai: Coimbatore, Pondicherry, Mahabalipuram, the hills.
We shoot digital on medium format and 35mm, and film on an XPan when the place asks for it. Every job is delivered as edited frames within the fortnight, weddings within the month.
Meera metered the studio every hour on 14 August, ISO 100, incident, flat on the seamless. This is why the booking sheet looks the way it does: portraits before eleven or after four, product in the middle.
A hard edge lands across the left third of the seamless until about eleven. Anything shot before that is shot from the window side.
EV 11.9 at 6,300K, no shadow worth naming. Product goes on the sweep now — forty SKUs fit between one and four.
Warm, and losing a stop every twenty minutes. Last portrait slot of the day. After that we stop pretending and light it.
Four things, four rates. 22 frames on the site, all of them from paid work.
Two photographers, both days, no posing beyond what the priest asks for.
Ninety minutes on seamless or by the north window. Three looks.
White sweep, coloured card or on black. Up to forty SKUs a day.
Half-days on location for magazines, restaurants and small brands.
12 jobs since May, 3,167 frames delivered. The bar on the right is the light we got that day.
Weddings are counted as delivered frames, not shots taken. Album proofs go out separately, within thirty days.
Three looks, 25 edited frames, delivered in five days.
Studio or a location inside Chennai. 40 edited frames.
Up to 40 SKUs, white or coloured sweep, retouched. Styling extra.
On location, one photographer, 60 edited frames.
Two photographers, 800+ edited frames, album proof in 30 days.
A 30% deposit holds a date; the rest on delivery. Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–19:00. Closed Monday. Weddings outside Tamil Nadu carry travel at cost.
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