From wars to wedding photography

I started doing wedding photography by accident in 1997. For 10 years at New York Newsday, I covered the NY Giants & Jets, Yankees & Mets, fashion collections in Paris, Milan and London, and the bombing of the NY World Trade Center in 1993. In 1996, after covering wars in Haiti Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, and winning the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for local news with a team of colleagues,I moved to Seattle and began a quiet business shooting stories for magazines. One day I got a call from a couple that was desperate to find a photographer. They were getting married on short notice and everyone they called was booked. I never considered shooting weddings while working as a photojournalist. At Newsday, it was not considered cool to shoot weddings. The couple was really nice, so I agreed to shoot their wedding if I could work the same way I would cover a news story, documenting their day with a photo essay. They agreed (I think they were out of options). The resulting photographs proved very satisfying for the wedding couple. For me it was something of a revelation. I actually enjoyed telling a joyful story for a change. 

Since that day I have made the transition from covering hard news to weddings, documenting them in the same way as my editorial stories. Now instead of getting shot at in conflict zones, I get to photograph joyful celebrations of love, family and friends. (The food is always better too). 250+ nuptial celebrations later, photographing weddings has become my most gratifying work (highlights include Conan O'Brien's wedding in early 2002). I have won a number of awards from the Association of Wedding Photojournalists and was named an International Award Winning Photographer. I love to be present when a couple looks over my pictures of their day.

Approach to wedding photogaphy - catching the moment

Faces tell the story. A camera allows me to freeze the fleeting expressions of emotion crossing the face of a bride or groom during some of the most significant moments in their lives. I believe my strength as wedding photographer is my skill in anticipating these moments. They are the ones that will tell the story of your day.

Inspired by the documentary photography of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Smith, Sebastio Salgado, James Nachtwey, and Josef Koudelka, I approach a wedding as an interested observer. My goal is to capture a visual record of a wedding and its emotions while creating as little distraction as possible, remaining respectful of your privacy and sensitive to your needs. After photographing in diverse cultures and in sensitive situations around the world, I have learned the advantages of being discreet and unobtrusive.