About Me
Hi my name is Bill. Your Photographer.
My Work
I obtained my B.F.A in Studio Art with emphasis in Photography through the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2005, I also was employed as a part-time Photographer's Assistant at Martin Schweig Studio, a 100 year old 3rd Generation Photography Studio in the heart of the Central West End. Under Martin Schweig III, I learned the concept of Photojournalist Style Wedding Photography and Portraits. From there, much of my work and approach to photography has been about capturing the moments as they happen and being able to tell a story as if we were right there in that very moment in time.
Even though, Wedding and Portrait Photography are at the top of my mainstream work, I do enjoy Fine Art as well. Abstract and Abstract Architectural work was much of my focus throughout my undergraduate studies and even today I still like taking my camera out and finding an interesting building with lines, textures, light and shadows. I still love to use film from time to time and develop film as well.
Biography
I was born in Dubuque IA in 1980. When at the age of 4, my family moved to St. Louis and I have lived here ever since.
I have always had a love for photography, even at a young age when I had my very first camera shooting 110 film. I always was photographing way too many pictures and constantly being reminded that I shouldn't be photographing soo much because it cost a lot to get the film processed. Well, I didn't listen and here I am today.
While obtaining my BFA, I was working full-time for a 1-hour Photo Processing Lab, as time would pass, I would later become the Lab Manager for three photo labs in the area under Qualex, a Kodak company. I was the"color matching guru", as they called me and as a resource for other co-workers and clients who had difficult color matching requests. Since I had the expertise of hand color matching photos in the dark room, I was the most experienced for the task at hand. Because of this special relationship I had with clients, the revenue for the three labs had increased almost double in the time that I was the manager.
I would decide that in 2007 I would begin a Photography Business, William Hellige Photography. As of today, I am almost exclusively digital to keep up with the technology and the times. I still use the set of skills that I learned in the traditional art form, using film, medium format and large format cameras, developing in the darkroom and studying light, which has helped me with complex lighting and posing situations as well as post production work after a photo session with a client.
As of today, the business is growing and I welcome more business on a daily basis. I don't limit myself to a certain type of photography. I am constantly looking for challenge and a project that I can gladly say "I did that!".
