Wes Kroninger | Photographer

A Westerville native, Wes first found his love for photography after graduating from Westerville North High School. After spending ten years away from Ohio, first running a portrait studio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and then running the roads as a freelance photographer on the packed streets of Los Angeles, California, he has finally returned to Ohio to offer his art to the families and businesses in his hometown.

Wes is well known for his inventive editorial and beauty portraiture—cleanly lit images with a vitality and vibrancy that impacts viewers immediately. His photographic collaboration with the Aveda student design team resulted in two Aveda’s Edwin Neill Full Potential awards. He also earned a Best of Show Award for a Children’s Miracle Network calendar, an organization to which he donates his photographic work. A photo essay completed in 2003 earned Wes First Place in the Southwest Journalism Conference. In 2004, he received the prestigious Hy Sheanin Memorial Scholarship from Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI). He also received an honorable mention in the prestigious Lucie Awards, which honor master photographers and their contributions to the field. He recently took home a gold ADDY award in New Orleans and a silver ADDY in Panama City, Florida.

Wes has an affinity for working with children and families and, even as he won awards for his advertising and corporate work across the country, it was through his work with the children and families that he excelled and found a different set of accolades. Working with children day in and day out in his studio in Baton Rouge Wes also began working with charity groups like The Children’s Miracle Network, CASA, Cancer Services, Coach Art, Taproot and numerous other nonprofit organizations with goals of easing the suffering of children with different needs.

Additionally, Wes’s work has gained national exposure, in publications including American Salon, Rolling Stone, Modern Salon, Rangefinder, Studio Photography, Banking Investor Magazine, Long Beach Magazine and a wide range of trade publications.

In the photography industry, Wes has also been recognized for his work as an instructor, leading extremely successful platform classes at the 2009 and 2011 WPPI conventions in Las Vegas, where he shared some of the secrets of his elegantly lit beauty images. He is also a contributor to Pro Photo Resource, a popular online resource for professional photographers. Wes’s first book, Lighting Design Techniques for Digital Photographers, is available in paperback wherever books are sold.