As I continued to improve my photography skills, my kids’ portraits definitely got better. My experience doing high school senior portraits led to a request by a former student to shoot her wedding in 2007, in Cincinnati.
I had not considered shooting weddings; it seemed like a daunting task. But I accepted (as I said at the time “just this once”), and found a photographer in the Cincinnati are who I hired as my “second”.
The experience surprised me. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy the photographic aspects, but I was struck by how the photographer (at least in an orthodox Jewish wedding) is the ONLY person who gets to experience EVERY part of the wedding. I also found the connection to the kids getting married, and their families, very rewarding.
After that experience, I pivoted my business to specialize in Jewish weddings, although I still did some child portraiture, and also some other events, like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.
Progression of business cards over the years
Here are just a few samples of my later years portrait work…
This was a challenge — how to do a portrait of a triplet bar mitzvah?! I decided to pose each boy depicting the three pillars of Judaism: Torah, Tefillah (prayer), and Tzedakah (charity). The I took the one image from each and combined them digitally, resulting in a single portrait:
I also had the opportunity to shoot a couple of concerts. Here are just a couple of images of Matisyahu, and Cheap Trick…..
But my main focus during these years was weddings…
Swipe to see samples of wedding images