I bought my first camera in 2009 — a Canon Rebel — to photograph a friend's wedding I had nothing to do with. I was twenty-four, working a desk job in Newark, and didn't really know what I was doing. Three weeks later, three other people who'd been at that wedding called to ask about theirs.
Fifteen years on, I shoot roughly fourteen weddings a year. I've made portraits for Allure and Vogue. I've photographed real estate listings, newborns in their first hours, and once, the seventy-fifth birthday of a man who'd hired me to do his portrait the week before he died.
"The photograph that matters is almost never the one being staged."
What I've learned is small but stubborn. The flower girl tugging on her grandfather's sleeve. The mother of the bride seeing the dress for the first time. The groom mouthing "I love you" to his sister across the room before anyone else has noticed she's crying.
I keep my camera in my hand. I don't talk much during your day. I show up early and stay late. I edit on my own time, in a quiet room, with the same care I'd want for my own family's pictures.