sparked my interest in it even more. I ended up doing these little side jobs, which led to shooting weddings for family and friends. Then one night I got a call from someone who had looked through a wedding album I'd done - I didn't even know the woman, but she asked me to shoot her wedding. It's humbling to have people pay you for something you love to do."

Elwell, however, was still a police officer and a decision would need to be made. "Well, yeah, I was receiving a lot of compliments and referrals, so I decided to leave the police force and open my own wedding photography business, J Everett Photography-Everett being my middle name." It was this bold move that changed the course of his life. Elwell became so successful in his business, assistants were soon needed. "What I like about assistants," Elwell says, "is that they're another pair of eyes. I can't see everything that happens at a

wedding. Sometimes I'm busy doing formals and something really unique is happening elsewhere at the same time... a great opportunity for a candid shot. Actually, this is how I brought Freddie [Miranda] into the fold. He was my assistant for a year or so and now look at him; he gets booked on his own."

With photography no longer a hobby, it was time for Elwell to get involved in something away from it. I'm really into music. I know a DJ named Tony Petrella who works for Tone Zone, a company I'd worked weddings with in the past. I have a small and very amateurish DJ system and wanted some advice on equipment so Tony set up a meeting with Gary [Byron]." Although the meeting would begin with a discussion about DJ equipment, it would transition to photography. Gary Byron, president of Tone Zone recalls, "I remember Joe looking very familiar to me but couldn't quite put my finger on where I knew him

from. It was an hour into our conversation that he told me he was a wedding photographer... then it clicked! Turns out I'd worked a few weddings with him over the years." Elwell picks up from here, "Everyone knows the name Tone Zone for their DJs, but I had no idea the previous year they had expanded into offering videography. Byron interrupts, "I never thought of opening a photography division. And you don't just start one because you know someone. But in seeing their work and witnessing Joe's ethic and how customer-oriented he is, I began to notice how great a fit this is." Elwell concludes, "It took months of meetings, some lasting past midnight, but I saw, close up, the kind of businessman Gary is and how strong Tone Zone is in the market. So I closed J Everett Photography and started Tone Zone's photography division."

Born and raised in Norwich, Connecticut, Joe Elwell took up photography strictly as a hobby. "In the late seventies the wedding industry wasn't what it's like today. If you were getting married, you went to a portrait studio like Olan Mills and asked if they would do your wedding. I loved photography but I knew I couldn't be cooped up in a studio all day. I ended up becoming a police officer and continued photography as a hobby," says Elwell. Ironically, it was his career in law enforcement that would take his hobby to another level. Elwell continues, "The department was aware of my side interest and sent me to all of these photography courses. Well this only