STEPHANIE DEHLER PHOTOGRAPHY
When Twin Cities photographer Stephanie Dehler
received her first SLR camera as a present for her 14th birthday, she didn’t waste any time putting it to good use. She began documenting her fellow students and activities for her high school yearbook, took college darkroom classes while working on her fine arts degree in interior design and has been taking photos ever since. She says, “I just really, really liked photographing people and their gestures and expressions. I was never interested in landscape photography because I thought it was boring unless there were people in it.” She traded in the film version for a digital SLR upon the birth of her first child, daughter Audrey, eight years ago.
As time passed, Stephanie became increasingly dissatisfied with the professional studio photos taken at Audrey’s milestone ages, remarking that “they just didn’t seem very genuine.” She began taking more and more of her own photos and felt freer to experiment, since digital photography did not require the additional investment in film. After son Aidan was born, she continued to photograph her own children and liked the results, saying, “I wasn’t trying to stage them… I was letting them be themselves.” Co-workers, friends and neighbors began to appreciate and recognize her style, and were soon asking if she would photograph their children.
What exactly constitutes Stephanie’s style? A combination of her designer’s eye for composition—coupled with her desire to be open and inspired by new things. Stephanie strives to provide laid back, relaxed and organic sittings, “with no time limit on any session. I keep my session fees lower than many studios as a sort of an insurance policy for my clients. That way people can invest in the prints if they want to, but they don’t have to feel like they made a huge initial investment if the images aren’t everything they hoped for.”
Any parent of a newborn (or a high school senior, for that matter) can appreciate her relaxed and common sense approach. She loves “showing up to a shoot and anticipating how it’s going to turn out, knowing whatever I end up with will not look like anything I have ever done before, essentially because I usually have no idea how the subject will respond to my camera!”
Stephanie’s relaxed, but enthusiastic, demeanor makes subjects comfortable and therefore, more responsive. “Kids are so authentic, honest and genuine. If I can get them to open up and forget they are being photographed, it is very rewarding. I like the challenge in that.”
Free to explore all possibilities, Stephanie creates real images that capture the essence of the person—the ideal balance of appearance and personality.
Though she never watches the clock instead of her subjects, Stephanie says, “I can tell when they are done.”
As her reputation began to grow, Stephanie took a leap of faith, trading in her ten-year career in visual merchandising for her own photography business. Now married with two children and living in Lonsdale (20 minutes south of Lakeville), she splits her time between sessions in her private studio and location sessions throughout the Twin Cities.
With repeat clients and word of mouth business growth, she is gratified by the great relationships and sometimes, friendships she has developed with her clients.
Sharing those clients’ milestones, Stephanie has found herself delving into high school senior photos, relationship/engagement and maternity photos, as well as weddings.
She favors different subjects for different reasons: the ideal baby age of 8 months—big enough to sit up, have great expressions, yet can’t crawl away—to teenagers, whose ideas she can incorporate and add to her own repertoire.
lonsdale, minnesota
507.210.4249
Living Eagan 