Full disclosure: I will not be doing any actual painting. If 
my mom were still around, she would tell you how, when I was little, I firmly believed that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I loved painting and drawing any chance I got. She supplied me with the works: canvases, acrylic paint, oil pastels, water colors, colored pencils. My art box had everything I needed to create masterpieces. Alas, it was not meant to be (at least in the painting/drawing department).
Thank goodness there ARE people out there who can really create beautiful paintings. Holly Erickson is one such person. She approached me about an interesting collaboration after I shot her and Matt’s wedding in the summer of 2013. Her idea to work together was humbling. Her work is striking.
Have an image from one of our sessions that you just love? Want to do something really special and unique, something beyond sharing on your favorite social media? Holly can produce a beautiful, one-of-a-kind, oil painting made from that favorite image.
Holly works closely with you to create the painting, getting a sense for who the subject is and what you envision as your end product. She captures personality so well through her art. She hand stretches her canvases around the wood frame. Bottom line: she sees what I see in your daughter’s laughter, your son’s curious grin, your family’s joy. Her paintbrush is my lens.
From Holly: “It is an absolute privilege to work with Stephanie in this special and unique capacity. I have 
always admired her work and to collaborate with her is a dream. Through her lens, she captures the beauty and integrity that I am captivated by in humanity. I have an MFA and over 15 years of experience as an oil painter. Like Stephanie, my goal is to capture the presence and the emotion of the moment. I find that the texture, luminosity and freedom of the brushstrokes in these paintings often offers a new perspective to portraiture. I find so much joy in creating these paintings for families; working with parents, siblings, spouses and friends to immortalize their loved ones. These paintings are keepsakes that can be passed down from one generation to the next and it is a great honor to see the emotion that they can bring into another person’s life.”
If you have had a session with me in the past and have such an image in mind or if you have an upcoming session booked with me, please check out this new offering on my Pricing page. I’m oh-so-excited about seeing some of my clients’ images as oil paintings!
Do you ever get so busy that those things on your to-do list that are important but not logistically life-changing (i.e pick up milk vs. update baby book) get put off for longer than you ever thought? I had a client tell me at her daughter’s Christmas shoot that she had meant to get prints of the images from our 6-month shoot but sadly hadn’t yet gotten around to it; her daughter was then 18-months old. Life gets busy, especially with kids. It made me a bit sad for this person who had 
gone through the steps to have professional photos taken of her daughter and yet had nothing to show for it on her walls. I’ve also had many clients ask where to get their images printed someplace “nice” vs. a consumer lab (i.e. Shutterfly, CVS, etc.).
