Chad David Kraus – Studio Owner / Photographer
View Chad’s gallery of B’nai Mitzvah photography here.
View Chad’s gallery of Wedding photography here.
View Chad’s gallery of Celebrity & Political events here.
I love life. It’s what feeds my passion for 
photography, ever since I was 12 when I traded in my lemonade stand earnings for a 35mm camera. For 25 years, that camera was an extension of me, capturing incredible travels around the world, the simple beauty of nature, and my children growing up.
After photographing a relative’s bat mitzvah, I received such praise and encouragement that I realized it was time to share my love of photography with others. Chad David Kraus Photography & Videography was born in October of 2008.
Since then, I’ve shot countless weddings, bar & bat mitzvahs, and other special events all over the New York tri-state area and beyond. I’ve parlayed my love of the theater and my acting background into photography of the rehearsal process to the stage to cast parties for numerous Broadway shows including “Wicked”, “Hamilton”, “Dear Evan Hansen”, “Jagged Little Pill”, “MJ The Musical”, and many more.
I also had the honor and privilege to shoot on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and am proud to say that one of my photographs is hanging in the Clinton home in Chappaqua, NY.
My photos have appeared in the New York Times, Times Square billboards, in marketing materials, and on countless mantelpieces, coffee tables, stairway walls, holiday cards, and office desks. 😉
I will travel anywhere in the world to shoot a special event, but my home is in Pleasantville, New York, with my incredible wife, 4 children, 2 yellow labrador retrievers, 1 King Charles Cavalier, 1 mini-doodle mutt, 2 bunnies, and that 35 mm camera sitting on my desk… always reminding me of my roots of this fun and fantastic photographic journey I’ve been on since the time of lemonade stands in front of my apartment building in NYC.
Jeffrey Fleisig – Principal Photographer / Senior Team Member
View Jeffrey’s galleries of Mitzvah and Wedding photography here.
Check out a highlight reel from a full Mitzvah captured by Jeffrey by clicking here.
Since high school, I have had a passion for documenting life through the camera. Years later, as an award winning photographer, my images have widely been exhibited and have appeared in numerous national publications including Time, People, InStyle, EveryDay with Rachel Ray, American PHOTO, & Popular Photography. In addition, my lifestyle portfolio has been represented world-wide.
I would definitely describe myself as a “people person”. There is always a smile on my face and an enthusiasm for sharing the happy moments of life’s big events. I simply love capturing real moments, in a photojournalistic style, as each special event unfolds naturally into amazing keepsake memories.
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Mark Liflander – Principal Photographer / Senior Team Member
View Mark’s gallery of Mitzvah photography here.
View Mark’s gallery of wedding photography here.
Check out a highlight reel from a full Mitzvah captured by Mark by clicking here.
Everywhere and nowhere. That’s how someone described me after one
of my first events. That’s been my 
motto ever since. I’m right in the thick of the action… up close or at a distance. Either way, I get the shot and I get it unobtrusively. I’m excellent at being exactly where I need to be without interfering with guests or the story of your family’s day. While I try to remain unobtrusive, I’m also present and happy to converse and engage with guests when appropriate and I’m always approachable and friendly with a welcoming smile.
I take great care to capture all the key moments of an event. Years of experience photographing Mitzvahs and weddings enables me to always be prepared and to anticipate the next moment. I take a candid, journalistic approach to photography, capturing emotions and spontaneous moments and the look & feel of an event. I capture personality and emotion with dynamic lighting while really connecting with people.
Tadej (Tah-day) “TZ” Znidarcic – Principal Photographer / Team Member
View Tadej’s gallery of Mitzvah photography here.
View Tadej’s gallery of wedding photography here.
Check out a highlight reel from a full Mitzvah captured by Tadej by clicking here.
The first camera I picked up was an old, manual Canon that belonged to my
mom. I was
in high school and there was something magical in looking through the viewfinder, pressing the shutter and creating a photograph. Things got even more interesting when I started to develop and print my own black-and-white photos. Fast-forward some years and the cameras I now use are digital and one can see the results almost immediately. But the magic of creation, of capturing a slice of life, remains.
Once I started taking photos there was no turning back. As my craft and understanding of photography developed, my work started to be recognized, and I’m honored to have had my photographs published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Conde Nast Traveler, Economist, and The Guardian, among others. I’ve traveled to all 7 continents to create stories and brought back unforgettable memories.
I now spend most of my time in NY and love shooting events. The energy of people brought together for a special occasion is amazing. I photograph moments and portraits, details and wider shots, to create a beautiful document of the unique event that will be viewed for years to come.
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I love photographing people because I am able to help preserve the moments that tell their stories.
Mitzvahs are my favorite event to photograph because they unite all generations to celebrate like no other.
While I love photography for its creative expression, I’ve realized that, for me, it has been centered around family, even from the beginning of my journey. Studying biomedical photography at RIT, my senior thesis was a film about birth and post-birth.
In the years that followed, my path veered away from biomedical photography and into the fashion and advertising world. During most of my 20+ year-long career as a fashion/advertising photographer, I specialized in photographing children, babies, and family. From Disney to Pampers, I’ve worked with some of the most well known companies in the world.
I believe my time working in fashion has provided a unique lens in which I photograph Mitzvahs. For the most part, I aim to capture the moments as they unfold. But when time permits, I choose a particular background, guiding my subject and implementing a certain lighting and framing to create a more styled image.
I feel blessed that I am entrusted to capture these occasions for families — some of the most beautiful, meaningful, fun, sometimes sad, and often most sacred times of people’s lives. No moment is unimportant; I love the challenge of capturing the smaller, more intimate moments in addition to the more significant ones. These moments are gone in the blink of an eye, but are remembered and re-lived through the images that we artfully craft.
Chad David Kraus Photography 