Jerry C. Interval, an award-winning portrait and wedding photographer, died Monday at UPMC Passavant in McCandless of complications from heart problems. He was 83.

"To say he loved photography is an understatement," said his son, Ken Interval of Johnstown. "It was his passion."

Mr. Interval, who lived in Moon the last couple years of his life but spent more than 40 years in Franklin Park, enjoyed the graphic creativity of photography.

"And the gizmos," his son said. "He loved the gadgets. If it dealt with photography, he'd make up his own [equipment] adaptations with Super Glue and duct tape."

He grew up on the North Side and attended Holy Cross, a Catholic boys' boarding school in New York, for high school, where he studied for the priesthood for a time.

However, that wasn't meant to be. He married Dora Battista, who would be his wife of 57 years, in 1949.

Mr. Interval worked full-time as a photographer from the early 1960s until about 2001, his son said, although he was heavily into photography as early as the 1940s.

He earned the degree of master photographer, craftsman from the Professional Photographers of America. He also was a member of the Triangle Photographers and the American Society of Photographers.

"He was so involved with it right up until the end," his son said. "He didn't totally make a transition into digital [photography] but he had gotten into the equipment a little bit. He tried to keep up with what was going on."

Mr. Interval met a lifelong friend and colleague, Bob Knuff, at a photography seminar in Ohio in the 1960s.

"He was a portrait and wedding photographer and a very good one, at that," says Mr. Knuff, a portrait and wedding photographer from Hubbard, Ohio. "Jerry was such a good-natured, happy person and he'd do anything for anybody."

The two and their wives routinely shared dinner and conversation together in Youngstown and Pittsburgh.

"He had a great sense of humor and that little laugh," Mr. Knuff said. "He was a great guy."

Other survivors include sons Jerry Interval of Brunswick, Ga., and Tom Interval of Sewickley; daughters Normajean Moser of Oil City, Gail Gil of Franklin Park, Julie Ann Interval of McKees Rocks and Tina Delaney of Bradford Woods; a sister, Gloria Nowlen, and brother, Bob Interval, both of Orlando, Fla.; and 11 grandchildren.

Visitation will be today from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Simons Funeral Home, 7720 Perry Highway, Ross.

A funeral Mass will follow at 2:30 p.m. at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, 201 Church Road, Pine.