The son of a successful banker, Robert Radifera grew up in Washington D.C., with a high-paying finance career waiting for him after college. A year abroad in Paris and a slew of photography and art classes forever changed his trajectory.

“Back at school in the States senior year, I’m filling out my form for last semester and I was freaking out about being an economics major,” Robert says. “It just hit me. This is not who I am. I loved my art classes.”
 
He decided to take an extra semester and graduated from Pennsylvania’s Allegheny College, earning a Bachelor of Arts with a focus on photography. Robert interned for D.C. commercial photographers who paid him with the high-end restaurant food he was shooting.
 
“All of my friends were getting married at the time, so I started shooting weddings for a couple of hundred bucks,” he says. “I was really good at it. I loved it. And I decided I could do this for a living.”
 
Robert married his college sweetheart Lauren and moved to Afton and then Charlottesville, watching the local wedding industry take flight and sharpening his craft by shooting hundreds of weddings over the years. Today, his style is described as classic and timeless, preserving history and serving as a couple’s documentarian.
 
“I want photos that will last for the great-grandkids and the great-great-grandkids to appreciate,” he says. “I tell my clients ‘If you didn’t remember I was there outside of the formal shots, then I did my job.’”
 
Robert documents your Charlottesville wedding day as it unfolds, setting up the perfect lighting and angle as needed and encapsulating those beautiful getting-ready candids between a bride and her mother and bridesmaids — some of his favorite genuine moments to shoot. He also carries a soft spot for the look on a groom’s face when they see their partner for the first time that day.
 
“Capturing those moments is what it’s all about,” he says. “They’ll remember how they felt at that moment and it will come flooding back when they see their photos later.”