Hi! I'm John and I love taking photos of beautiful and interesting things. You can see from my photo that I've been around a while! I have learned a lot in my years of photography and I am still learning. I am still experimenting. And I am still looking for that perfect picture!

One of the things I love about weddings is meeting all the lovely people from all over the world. I have photographed couples in traditional Hindu, Ghanaian, and Nigerian wedding apparel and a vow renewal at a masquerade ball. I have learned about wedding customs (and duties of the photographer) of many different religions. I have photographed weddings in large cathedrals, country churches, wedding venues, backyards, hilltops, forrests, cliffsides, horse barns, beaches, lakesides, riversides, and once in a grotto! I especially love the differing dances in differing cultures. And, oh my, the food choices!

But in all this diversity, in all these cultures, the wedding is always about love, emotion, dedication, rememberance, and beauty. My philosophy is to do my best to fulfill the bride's vision - to make her dreamed pictures come to life in real photographs. I have lots of experience and I can make suggestions. You can even leave it all to my discretion. But achieving the bride's vision is my goal.

If you would like to know a little about me, I learned photography as a teenager from my older borther who was an Army photographer with the 101st Airborne. I shot my first wedding in 1969 while still in high school. In high school and later at MTSU, I worked as a news and sports photographer for the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal.

I graduated with a math degree from MTSU and became a math teacher for my day job. But I continued to work as a photographer as a second job. I worked as a photographer for the Tullahoma News as well. While a school teacher, I coached girl's basketball and also boy's soccer at Tullahoma High School.

I moved on to become a math professor at Motlow State Community College and then moved on to the Tennessee Board of Regents as the Executive Director of Training & Technical Services of the Regents Online Degree Program. Now I have an Ed.D. from Tennessee State University.

Eventually I moved on to be the Director of Distance Learning at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I finished my carrer in education as Director of Consulting at Desire2Learn, an international software company.

I have been to 44 of the 50 states, 5 Canadian provinces, many countries on Europe, and to the Middle East.

During all this time, I have continued to work as a photographer. For several years I worked as a free lance photographer contributing sports photographs to MaxPreps, the high school division of CBS Sports. I maintain a blog of bird photographs at johnsbirdblog.com.

And I want to shoot your wedding!

Savannah often helps out as my second shooter. She is a graduate of the University of Tenessee at Chattanooga and she is my granddaughter.

She began to help as an assistant in high school. By college she had her own camera and I began to seriously teach her about photography. She is now quite accomplished.

As you might guess, a photographer takes many more shots than are delivered. We take multiples to make sure we have a good one with everyone's eyes open. We take lots of casuals, some of which are great and some not so much.

Savannah's keeper rate (the percent of delivered photos) is actually better than mine. In recent weddings, she has been shooting at about a 45% keeper rate. Almost half of her shots are keepers!

She is particularly good with details, decor, and with the bride and other ladies.