When I'm not shooting weddings, I'm usually chasing a soccer ball, trying a new restaurant, or losing to my daughter at video games.
HI, I'M MANUEL — A DOCUMENTARY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER WITH A SOFT SPOT FOR A GOOD LOVE STORY.
About me
I'm a documentary wedding photographer based in Westchester, serving the Hudson Valley and New York City. My approach blends honest storytelling with an eye for light, atmosphere, and composition — because a wedding gallery should hold both: the real moments as they happened, and portraits made with real care.
I got into photography almost by accident. Eighteen years and 800+ weddings later, it's still the thing I love most.
My mission? TO MAKE PHOTOGRAPHS YOUR FAMILY WILL STILL BE LOOKING AT, GENERATIONS FROM NOW.
I have always been attracted to seemingly mundane scenes and finding beauty and poetry in everyday life. Somewhere along the way, I found Henri Cartier-Bresson's idea of the "decisive moment," and the French Impressionists — especially Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party. Ordinary life, treated as worthy of art. That's exactly what I try to find at every wedding.
That was when I knew documentary storytelling was where I belonged.
I got my start as a second shooter at a wedding studio in White Plains, learning the rhythm of a wedding day from a photographer who'd been doing it for decades. Early on, I noticed most wedding photography was stiff — people lined up, forcing smiles. I started photographing the moments in between instead. People responded to it, and that became my style.
My now-wife, Diana, handed me an old film camera one day, almost as an afterthought — and it changed the direction of my life. My first photography teacher taught me something before she ever taught me a single setting: how to actually see. How light shapes a scene. What makes a moment worth keeping.
IT ALL STARTED WITH AN OLD FILM CAMERA
We have a rescue dog named Cooper and a cat named Simba, both of whom are convinced they run the house. They're not wrong.
The real bosses of the house
Movies, Photography Books and Soccer, mostly — I still play, even though my team loses more than it wins. The rest of my free time tends to go toward museums and galleries. I was just in Chelsea recently, walking through the modern art spaces, always looking for the same things I look for at a wedding: light, composition, a reason something stops you.
In my spare time...
My wife Diana is Peruvian, so our house runs on a mix of both worlds — good ceviche and pollo saltado on one night, pandebono and arepas the next. Honestly, some weeks we eat more Peruvian than Colombian.
My favorite food
I speak Spanish and English. Given the choice, I'll always watch a film in its original language with subtitles rather than dubbed — something about hearing it as it was actually made. I think that's the same instinct that pulls me toward documentary work.
A small thing about me
Get to know me
