Kelly Prizel Photography

The reason I started in this industry was because I had something to say. Namely, “Where are the f*cking gay people? Where are the people of color? Where are the rip-your-heart-out emotionally gorgeous weddings minus the trendy hipster-gear?”

Queering Tradition
“Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as… as… as a fiddler on the roof!”

We live in a post-Fiddler-on-the-Roof age. No longer must we be bound by the gender roles that make up the bulk of Tevye the milkman’s song. We invent our marriages and partnerships every day, whether we are part of the LGBTQ community or not. We revise, reconstruct, and remake traditions every day. And we validate those traditions in front of our friends, families–whether of origin or by choice–and communities.

Whether we are marrying under our great-grandfather’s tallit, jumping the broom, performing a drag show, taking communion, or posing with leader’s in LGBTQ justice movements, we draw on the past to move beyond the present. Queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz writes in his book Cruising Utopia, “Queerness is a longing that propels us forward.” We are cruising utopia, we are meeting face-to-face, we are letting the facts of love propel us forward, but not without a rudder.

I tell my clients on the phone that I want their photos to look like the most artfully composed family snapshots they’ve ever seen: with all the authenticity and emotion of those pictures in a shoebox you rifle through when you need to have a good laugh (or cry!).

My wife’s an English/Queer Studies professor at Princeton. We have a million books. And yet, I love the Golden Compass or Lord of the Rings. A good fantasy/sci-fi book always makes me happy.

Could have? I do have…everyday in my pj’s. Any kind of bad techno, preferably from the 90s.