"With Beth we wanted more than a photographer and we got one. Beth's photographs are a portrait in time of life being lived, not posed." "There's going to be a point in your future, (and you don't know it yet) where you will want to look back and know what really happened on"That Day". Beth is the person that captures the essence of the wedding experience.

It's a special skill called empathy and very few photographers have it. It's the ability to point the camera at the right thing. Not just the easy thing. It's the ability to capture the important thing. You won't be able to put it on a list ahead of time (even if you had time for a list like that)

That is exactly why you need someone like Beth - someone who has the sensitivity to capture that certain something happening off in a corner that "normal" people miss. But you're not normal are you? Why would anyone want to be?

And that's why you need Beth. Because you will remember the cake and flowers, the toasts and the dance, but what you will want, that future you, is to remember which one of your cousins was kissing the busboy behind the plastic ferns. That's what Beth can give you that no one else can." "I don't think of Beth as a wedding photographer. To me, she is an artist who happens to shoot weddings." "At certain moments we felt like our week-long Cape Cod wedding party was like being on assignment for National Geographic.... and Beth certainly captured ALL the wildlife!" We particularly appreciated the humor in some of her shots as well, and everyone at our wedding loved her." "Weddings are extremely important," says Herzhaft, a Los Angeles based photographer who also works for the entertainment and advertising industries."They are one of our few remaining social rituals." Working a wedding makes her feel like "a cultural anthropologist as well as an artist," Herzhaft says, and she's covered events ranging from the elaborate nuptials of movie moguls to quickie ceremonies at municipal courts.

A connoisseur of offbeat moments, Herzhaft has her favorite pictures, like the one she took of a bride giving a pep talk to her ring bearer - who also happened to be her dog. But she's also taken bridal portraits that are the epitome of romance, like the image in which the bride's windswept veil seems to be illuminated from within.

The fact that weddings are filled with contrasts of solemnity and silliness captivates Herzhaft. "Weddings are complex," she says. "It's a deeper document when you photograph both the highs and lows of the wedding, not just the highs."

From Brides Magazine—"Hot Shots" "The word 'traditional' is not in my vocabulary," says Herzhaft, a documentary photographer who appeals to the open-minded and to the renegade children of socialites. She...aims to capture the wedding as a sociological event. .... "It's an emotionally loaded event, and I like trying to do something multidimensional, not just have a record of who was there. ... I'll take the set photo and color shots if the couple insists, but if I am spending three hours doing setups, I'm not getting the candid shots I'm good at," she says.

From Los Angeles Magazine—the Essential Guide to LA Weddings issue