Business & Tech

Toth Photography Celebrates 50 Years of Photographing Weddings

The photographer who started taking photos in Hungary at the age of 15 and his wife continue to take wedding pictures 50 years later.

 

It's a golden anniversary of sorts. 

After 50 uninterrupted years, Joseph (Jozsef) and Peggy Toth, owners of Toth Photography, are celebrating 50 years in the wedding picture-taking business. 

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The couple recently both shot a wedding on Aug. 11 for a couple in Akron, marking 50 years of wedding photography for the couple who owns Toth Photography. 

Joseph began taking photos when he was only 15-years-old in Budapest, Hungary, where he was born. Peggy said her husband volunteered at Kalman Photo Studio, a large commercial photography studio in Budapest, that did photography of import/export products as well as portraits of Hungarian movie and theater stars.  

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"One famous client was, the famous German conductor," said Peggy.

After all the years of volunteer work, Joseph earned a full four-year scholarship to the University of Budapest Photo and Film Art and in the spring of 1955, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Commercial Photography. 

His first paid job was for MTI, the Hungarian International news agency and the movie and theater magazine. 

Joseph was assigned to photograph the Hungarian revolution on Oct. 22, 1956. 

"One of his photographs of Hungarians capturing a Russian tank at the Parliament building in Budapest was released by MTI world-wide," said Peggy. "The Russians took over Hungary a few weeks later and on Jan. 17, 1957 Joseph, his brother John and their friend Czoki escaped to Austria."

After leaving Hungary, the three men went to Canada, where Joseph stayed for five years and started his own photography business in the living room of an apartment he was renting. He decided to move to the Akron-area in July of 1962 and has been here ever since. 

His first wedding photography assignment was a ceremony and reception at the Hungarian church on Grant Street in Akron in 1962.

"He has continuously photographed hundreds of weddings since then in the past 50 years," said Peggy. 

In 1966, he became Ohio Edison Co.'s company photographer, a position he had for 18 years and at the same time kept shooting weddings. 

"He loves the happiness of the wedding occasion and the challenge of the many types of personalities involved," said Peggy. "He calls himself the greatest Hungarian photographer and enjoys singing opera to his clients."


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