Roman Grinev - I wasn't one of those kids who had a camera around his neck at the age of 2. Actually, I didn't really grow up in a creative household. Both my parents worked 9-to-5 jobs. After high school, I went off to business school because that's all I really knew. In my third year of college, I was required to take an elective. I chose photography, and wow – it really opened my eyes to see the world from a completely new perspective. I found I really enjoyed going around the streets of Boston, just documenting street life as I saw it. Around this same time, I meet an artsy girl named Kim, who is now my wonderful, creative wife. (And yes, she's still artsy.)
All of these forces got me out of business school and into a professional, full-time photography program at the New England School of Photography. What a great experience and a great foundation. I immediately discovered that my passion was documenting people and their lives, so in 1996, I started working for local newspapers in Massachusetts. I fell into weddings by accident when a fellow photographer at the paper told me she shot weddings on the side.
Back in the old days -- 1996 -- I imagined a wedding photographer posing and setting up every picture. Basically, running the wedding. That surely wasn't me or my style, but I loved to photograph weddings and was relieved to find that most people were much happier with a less obtrusive, more documentary style.
Kim and I moved to the Washington DC area in 2000 for a change of pace, since we both grew up in Massachusetts. I continued working for newspapers and balancing a wedding business, but decided in 2003 to focus solely on documenting weddings. Now, to each wedding, I bring everything I have -- my passion for the craft and my experience documenting hundreds of weddings and thousands of newspaper assignments -- and I love every minute of it.
I currently live in Maryland with Kim and our 6-year-old son, Zack. Having an artist for a mother and a photographer for a father, Zack did have a camera around his neck at the age of 2.
