While a great deal of my photography work is weddings and portraits, I frequently get calls from a wide assortment of folks images asking me to shoot for a diverse range of purposes, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise a two years ago to get a call from Elizabeth Steinebach, a stained glass artisan based in Orrville, Ontario.  Elizabeth was looking for quailty images of some of her stained glass lamps to enter in the annual calendar contest held by the America Stained Glass Lamp Artists (ASGLA) and wondered if I could help her out.  Due to the reflective characteristics of the stained glass when the lamps were lit she had been unable to find anyone who could get high quality images of the lamp she wanted to submit to the competition.    I told Elizabeth that although I had done a range of commercial/product photography this would be a bit different but I was willing to give it a shot.  I ended up getting Elizabeth to leave her lamps with me and after some experimenting with various lighting arrangements I was able to get some good shots of her lamps.  I recently found out that one of the Maple Leaf design lamp images that I had taken for Elizabeth had been selected for the December page of the 2010 calendar put out by the American Stained Glass Lamp Artists.  This is a great honor for Elizabeth and I was pleased to learn that my image had helped in the process!

A while after doing the lamp images for Elizabeth called again and had me take some images of a huge stained glass window with a rose design that she did for the church in Orrville. It was another challenging shoot.  It was mid winter and the lighting through the clear parts of the glass showed some background from the building next to the church. We ended up using a tall ladder and some huge drop cloths I had brought with me and hanging them from the eves of the Church roof to block out the nearby buildings.  I am sure passers by figured we we out of our mind.

Elizabeth recently held an exhibition at the Old Log Cabin Inn highlighting the endangered nature of some of the specialty stained glass she works with and I have included two of those pieces below (the wildlife pieces).

I met up with Elizabeth recently at her home and studio to look at the calendar and get a shot of her.  I was absolutely blown away by one of the wonderful stained glass creations she showed me.  Called “We Worship” the piece is over 23 inches across (0ver 31 in the oak frame) and it in addition to it’s striking design,  it features pieces of glass with one and two inch bevels, flash, crackle and gold point glass.  I have included a photo of Elizabeth with this amazing creation in the selection of images below.

You can see much more of Elizabeth’s work on her website at www.steinebach.ca Take a look at Elizabeth’s site, you won’t be disappointed!