My path to photography started young—watching my brother develop film in a basement darkroom, being captivated by images appearing in the developer tray. I studied photography formally, then spent over a decade working commercially, photographing products, architecture, and industrial projects throughout the Chicago area.

Everything shifted when my daughter Courtney was born in 1998.

For years I'd told people, "I don't do weddings, and I don't do babies." But suddenly I had binders full of black and white negatives from her first year. I photographed her friends, then their families. I couldn't help noticing to how quickly things changed,how a phase that felt permanent would be gone in months.

In 2001, my wife Elise and I formalized this work as Wehmeier Portraits.

Wehmeier Portraits is a partnership.

Rob is the photographer and creative lead, guiding the client conversations, the portrait experience, and the vision behind the work. Elise brings the organization and product expertise that turns photographs into finished artwork. She guides clients through selection, framing, presentation, and the details that make the entire process feel calm, personal, and complete.

Together, we approach portrait sessions as something closer to collaboration than transaction.

The images matter. Technical excellence matters. But they're not what gives this work meaning.

What matters is the space we create before the camera ever comes out. The conversations about what's changing. The questions that help people notice what they're already feeling but haven't named. The permission to slow down when everything in modern life pushes you to move faster.

What matters is paying attention to how a family moves together—the natural distance they keep, where ease shows up, where guardedness lives. And then gently guiding them toward the closeness that exists beneath their everyday patterns.

The portrait that results holds more than how you looked. It holds how you were together at a moment when someone in your family recognized that time was passing and wanted to bear witness to it.

Over the years, we've seen these images grow in meaning. A photograph that seemed ordinary at the time becomes precious later when you realize what it preserved. This is why we still do this work, even as technology makes image-creation easier and more ubiquitous.

The need for genuine witness—for someone to say "stop, this matters, let me help you see it"—hasn't disappeared. If anything, it's become more urgent.

We live and work in Orland Park, where we've raised our three children (Courtney, plus Brooke and Ryan who came after and changed everything all over again).

We've been doing this together for over twenty five years now. We're members of Professional Photographers of America and the Professional Photographers Association of Northern Illinois, though honestly, the credentials matter less than the accumulated experience of watching hundreds of families navigate change.

I've written elsewhere about transition, ritual, and why portraits still matter. That essay goes deeper into the philosophy behind our approach.

But the simple version is this: families still need ways to mark the passages that culture no longer pauses to recognize. We create space for that marking to happen. The portrait is the residue of that experience—a reminder that someone witnessed what was changing and helped you see it clearly.

If you sense something shifting in your family, even if you can't name it yet, we'd welcome a conversation about whether this work might serve you.