Meet Michael Orzell, Sarasota Photographer
The first thing my wedding photographer said on my wedding day in May 2012 wasn't to me. He said it under his breath, not to anyone in particular, but it happened to be within earshot: it was going to be a long day.
That stuck with me. Afterwards I couldn't stop wondering how long a wedding day actually is, and whether it has to feel that way. He probably doesn't know it, but that one offhand line sparked something that has only grown since.
Before that I photographed everything except weddings. Family, friends, animals, landscapes, whatever was in front of me. Shooting one had never once occurred to me.
So that June I went on Craigslist and found a photographer out of New York who was shooting a wedding in Connecticut and needed an assistant. I figured I couldn't do any harm as an assistant, and I'd get to see a wedding day from the other side of the camera.
I kept assisting and second shooting every weekend I could get, for as many photographers as I could, so I could learn from all kinds of different backgrounds and start to develop my own style. That September I photographed my first wedding of my own, at Schodack Island near Albany.
It turned out to be the opposite of what I'd been told. A wedding day isn't long at all. It goes just as fast for the photographer as it does for the couple, because when you're genuinely invested in getting it you don't have time to look at a clock.
There's no redo button and no chance to pause. You work on instinct, you go with the flow, and you're anticipating the next thing before the one in front of you has finished. Fourteen years later that hasn't changed, and it's still the part I like.
Three hundred is a lot of weddings, and the reason I’m still doing it is that no two of them are the same. I could have shot all three hundred at one venue and it would still be true. I’ve photographed Saint Clements Castle more than thirty times, counting the weddings I second shot, and not one of those days repeated itself, because every couple is different, and so is the family, the traditions, and what they actually care about.
That’s what keeps me in it, and it shapes how I shoot a wedding day: getting everything that matters without being the reason a moment gets interrupted.
Taking it seriously doesn’t mean standing at the edge of the room with a long lens. I listen to the speeches while I’m photographing them. At the reception I’m usually out on the floor dancing through the crowd, partly because it’s the best place to photograph a dance floor from and partly because I enjoy it.
I still have a good time at these. A photographer who is enjoying the day is a lot easier to have around than one who is counting down.
After all those weddings, most of them in New England, my family and I moved to Sarasota in July 2025. We’d decided on it the previous December.
My in-laws had been snowbirds in Nokomis for about ten years, so we’d been coming down in the winter more and more. Up there, winter is cold, gray gloominess, and that part is just true. But what actually made up our minds was how much we didn’t want to leave the weather here every time we flew home. We started looking at houses and decided quickly.
Being outdoors all year was the draw, and there are enough kids in our neighborhood that mine can run around without being driven somewhere first. The heat and the humidity in August took getting used to. So did the flat. But the real adjustment is that there’s no fall. In New England you get the foliage. Down here the trees just don’t change.
I spent most of the rest of 2025 back in Connecticut, finishing the weddings I’d already committed to. The Florida work started properly in 2026. One of the first was a surprise proposal at the Venice fishing pier, standing behind him while he got down on one knee.
What do I shoot now?
These days that’s weddings along the Gulf Coast, family sessions on the beach and at the parks around Sarasota, and headshots and team photos for businesses in Sarasota, Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch.
The family work came out of the weddings, and not as a change of direction. Couples whose wedding I’d photographed would get in touch again later, and I’d end up covering a family session, a baptism, or whatever came next. You build something real with people over a wedding day, and it carries on from there.
What do I do off the clock?
When I’m not working you’ll find me on the pickleball court, photographing wildlife, drinking a coffee, or outside somewhere with my wife and kids. Being outdoors all year was a big part of why we moved here, and Sarasota makes it easy. Shooting more family sessions has also given me more of my weekends back, and I spend most of them outside.
If you’re trying to work out whether I’m the right person for your wedding or your family session, the quickest way is to look at the work, either the wedding portfolio or the family portfolio, and read what other clients said. You can also see family session pricing, or just get in touch.