Bio
My desire to photograph things began somewhere in the Dark Ages when film ruled the world. In other words, before megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, large digital image files, and cell phones with amazing photographic capabilities installed as add-ons to snapshot every waking moment in life. So things change and progress and I am now submerged in the wonderful wide world of bytes.
I wasn’t a kid who picked up a dad’s Polaroid and fell in love with photography. What I do remember is experimenting with a pinhole camera made with cardboard boxes, duct tape and some photographic paper. Then there was Uncle Cal, who turned into the family photographer at get-togethers. It was inspiring to watch him work. I loved the large camera with the lens that pulled out like an accordion and spit out red-hot flash cubes after each family’s official photo at the reunions. Rarely did people put up rabbit ears or sneak improper gestures at that time, family shots were serious business.
In college I took photography courses as an elective and spent entire days in the darkroom. I lost at least one entire semester of daylight while processing and printing really bad photographic works that I thought were amazing art pieces the world couldn’t live without. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Quite sure those thoughts came from long exposure to the darkroom chemicals in developer and fixer.
I studied Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others, Thank you Al Carter. Since then I have been trying to see the world from the perspective of the lens. Mostly failing in frustration but getting great satisfaction from the scattered successes.
With the many dramatic advancements in photography, the one thing that remains constant is that a compelling photograph still rests with the eye behind the lens. Other than just capturing or recording a moment, the artistic goal is to find and expose new ways to look at any given scene; to use the lens to expose something greater; to expose a fresh, new perspective.
(…and then again this may still be the darkroom chemicals talking)
In the early 90’s, and with much help along the way, I started working in commercial portfolio fashion and loved the energy. (Thank you Kari, Dave, Joe and Mike) After working with a variety of Agencies, I began shooting for the newly formed Agency Models And Talent in 1996, and continue that relationship to this day. Agency Models And Talent has become one of the upper midwest’s main players and top talent agencies. You can access their website at agencymodelsandtalent.com
In recent years I have also found a love of shooting artistic pieces for amazing artists and architectural design for incredibly artistic interior designers. Examples of my work in this and many other areas can be seen in the pages of this website.
Thank you for viewing,
Stephen Voegeli