‘If Salman Khan likes you, your life is set’: Avinash Gowariker on the time he stayed with Bhai at his home

In an interview with Mid Day, Avinash revealed, “I’ve always said if Salman likes you, your life is set. I have been lucky that he liked me and liked my work, his family… their heart is of pure gold. I didn’t have a place to stay so they just said ‘stay at home’ and I was staying (with them) and shooting, it was like one big party happening. Any picture you see of Salman, say from 95 to 2000-2003, those seven-eight years, I have every photo (of him), and every photo is clicked in and around Galaxy (Salman’s family house in Bandra, Mumbai). Nothing, no lights, nothing, we just go down, he stands, he looks great and we shoot. I mean there are hundreds and hundreds of memories of that. I just look back at all of that with gratitude and thank my stars.”

The photographer then also opened up about how Salman’s Judwaa (1997), directed by David Dhawan, got its poster from one of the candid shots Avinash had clicked of Salman’s below Galaxy.

Avinash shared, “With Salman, two shoots come to my mind. One will definitely be the shoot where we were doing nothing and he was bare-bodied, he removed his ganji (vest) and put it around his forehead and there was a fisherman’s boat outside Galaxy, and he just went down and he bent down. I shot that picture on negative just for fun, there was nothing to it. In the evening, Sajid Nadiadwala was home and Judwaa shoot was going on… he saw it (the picture) and said ‘yeh toh apna poster hai (this is our poster)’. It had no connection with Judwaa, but he said, ‘no no, this is mind blowing, we’ll put this up as our poster’. They had not shot the climax of Judwaa, so in the climax of Judwaa, Salman has his vest tied around his forehead because they had liked that look. It happened to me for the first time, my first big poster.”

Avinash has clicked several pictures of actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Tiger Shroff and others and is considered as one of the most revered celebrity photographer in Bollywood.

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