Gloss Photography [Studios] has creative and relaxed approachWritten by: Leon Cohen, Op-Ed Editor“You’ve seen them on television, probably read about them in the newspapers and magazines- the ‘bridezillas,’ brides as short-tempered and often as abusive as the giant flame-breathing repitle Godzilla in Japanese monster movies.
But such brides don’t intimidate Jaci Sumner, the photographer who with her husband Sam runs Gloss Photography Studios. In fact, she said, “I love Bridezillas.”
Why? Because, as she explained during a recent interview at their studio on [Capitol] Drive in Shorewood, “They know exactly what they want, they’re harder to impress, and it’s more satisfying when I blow their minds away” with high quality work.
“My ultimate goal is to make [brides] look and feel fabulous,” Sumner said. Moreover, “My personality is outgoing, which allows great communication with my clients and allows a unique and natural photographic experience.”
In addition, “My style is very funky, out of the box,” said Jaci. “That’s why I get the clients I do. They don’t want their mother’s photographer at their wedding.”
Melissa Poll will be marrying Matt Honigman at Congregation Shalom this April, and has hired Gloss Photography [Studios] for that event and for an “engagement session” done this past August.
Poll has seen other wedding photos by Jaci and, “her approach is really fresh and unique,” Poll said in a telephone interview. “Her pictures don’t look like all the others” with their cliches, she said.
Moreover, Jaci “is so relaxed. She made us feel really comfortable. She’s totally open to any ideas and really easy to work with,” Poll continued.
Also Portraits
And weddings are not the limit of her business. Gloss also does portraits of babies, children, high school senior photographs and other family celebration events as well as weddings.
Nancy Henry of Mequon has some family photos that Jaci created. “She took some fabulous pictures of my son and daughter-in-law and their three children one summer out in the park,” she said. “She just does fabulous work.”
For his part, Sam, 29, does commercial photography, including “product shoots and album covers,” he said. In fact, he began as a musician, majoring in music production and technology, and came to photography both through marrying Jaci and creating covers for recordings he had produced.
Jaci, 26, was raised in Oshkosh, where she fell in love with photography as a child, shooting with “a little film camera.” Most people around her said photography is not a lucrative field, but “my grandma always told me you need to do it, you need to follow your dreams. And I did.”
She earned a degree in fine arts with photography emphasis at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She also spent a summer in Italy studying “fine arts in all media,” she said.
During her education, she discovered digital photography. “At one time, I was that person saying, ‘I will never do digital. I will be film for life,’” Jaci said. But a class on digital art made her fall in love with capacities of digital photography.
“I can really pull some amazing things off,” she said. “I can make a picture look like film, make it look like an antique, make it look like a destroyed negative. Which is really wanted right now; I have a lot of contemporary clients who really like the old, grainy, antique-y feel… which is great because it’s a wonderful effect we can add to the portraits.”
Sam grew up in [Shorewood] and was interested in drawing and painting as well as music. He earned his undergraduate degree at The Evergreen State College in Washington state.
After graduating in 2001, he returned to Milwaukee and “was doing my music stuff and working a day job” as a delivery driver when he met Jaci on a blind date.
“It was always my top goal to own my own studio,” Jaci said. Through another photographer that acted as her mentor, she had an opportunity to operate and later to buy a studio in Grafton, but “I really wanted to open up my business in Shorewood. I really felt Shorewood needed a studio to compliment the work that I offer.”
As Sam helped Jaci set up the business, she taught him [the ropes of photography].
“I just got more and more interested in it, learning more of the ropes. I’d find myself sitting there all night playing with Photoshop, messing with the pictures, creating stuff… It was just a natural thing to do,” he said.
In the 2 years the studio has operated, Gloss Photography [Studios] has [photographed] more than 30 weddings, all over Wisconsin and in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Mexico.
“You’re helping people capture their memories in a way that will last forever,” said Sam. “To know that you’re the one behind the camera is really cool.”
Jaci also mentioned that she is a member of the Professional Photographers [of America] and is ‘probably the youngest’ board member of the Shorewood Business Improvement District.
For more information, visit the studio’s website, [www.glossphotographystudios.com] or call 414-332-0195”
-Article taken from the Jewish Chronicle 1/23/09 (Weddings & Celebrations Cover page in association with article)
*Some information has been corrected due to typos
