After a record breaking 20,954 entries from all over India, Sanika Jahagirdar from Mumbai wins the third edition of Kodak Better Photography Wedding Photographer Of the Year. A professional photographer, Sanika is the first female to win this title since the awards were first started in 2009.
Better Photography, a photography magazine declared the winners at a grand awards ceremony hosted at The Westin Mumbai Garden City. Sanika Jahagirdar who was also the category winner for Photo Series on a Single Wedding, was judged the title winner by the final judge, the renowned wedding photojournalist and documentary photographer Sephi Bergerson.
Apart from earning the title of Kodak-Better Photography Photographer of the Year 2011 on a national platform, she has won a grand cash prize of one lakh rupees, including a D-LITE IT One standard kit from associate partner, Photoquip, and two photobook from associate partner, Canvera.com which were also given to each of the other category winners. As a special surprise announced by Sephi Bergerson at the awards ceremony, Sanika also wins a photography workshop by Sephi Bergerson that costs sixty thousand rupees.
The competition was organized by Better Photography, in sponsorship with title partner Kodak along with Photoquip and Canvera.com, television partner CNBC TV18, online partner Wedding Sutra.com and Blogging Partner MissMalini.Com.
The awards night saw a large presence from both sides of the photography fraternity, the photographers as well as the manufacturers, including Bipin Mistry, Fawzan Hussain, Prakash Tilokani, Girish Mistry, Amit Ashar , Sunil Raju, Indraneel Mukherjee , Swapan Mukherjee , Milind Ketkar; Manoharan al Periaswamy, Director, Tourism Malaysia; Dhananjay Saliankar, Regional Director – International Business, India & South Asia at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide; Mr. S. Srinivasu, Country Business Manager, Consumer Digital Group, Kodak India ; J. P. Soni, CMD, Photoquip India Ltd ; Dhiraj Kacker, CEO & Co-Founder, Canvera.com