She seamlessly merges the roles of mom and art photographer to create heartwarming images that embody the traditional family.
Meg Loeks lives in a remote, rural area of northern Michigan with her husband, three little boys, and a huge Saint Bernard named Juni. She loves spending time outdoors whenever possible. In her photography she bounces between lifestyle, fine art and environmental portraiture and loves to merge these different photographic genres together. Meg is drawn to low light and color theory, but her greatest inspirations are her children and nature. Her images have been frequently published in Click Magazine, and she’s actively engaged in Click & Company where she mentors and inspires moms just like her. She’s also had several images included in their Voice Collection.
Meg was recently named Looks Like Film 2016 Artist of the Year, and she’s an ambassador for Sigma and Profoto. Lately she’s cut back on her commercial work, limiting her clients mostly to close family and friends.
It was because of her dad, a photo enthusiast who mainly shoots nature, that Meg Loeks developed a passion for photography. Her dad had a subscription to National Geographic and she used to save every issue.
Meg started shooting film when she was about 14, and began developing film in her high school’s darkroom. She took a break from photography during college but picked it up again when she started having children. By then she’d made the switch to digital.
Her mission: to photograph her children as they were, and to interweave her love of nature photography with her children by encouraging them to explore. Around the time her first son was born she started taking classes through Clickin Moms, now known as Click & Company. Before that she’d only taken a few classes in high school and was mainly self-taught. “The two photographers who helped me become the person I am today are Emma Wood and Caroline Jensen,” says Loeks. “While I didn’t really have a one-on-one mentorship with them, I did take several of their workshops.”
Meg Loeks’s current mission can be described as creating images that capture “childhood nostalgia.” She had a wonderful childhood herself and she wants her children to experience much of what she did when “things were simpler, time was mostly spent outdoors, and children were encouraged to take risks.” Her goal is to capture those beautiful moments as they occur. Her oldest son was diagnosed with ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) just over a year ago, and she’s now faced with daily challenges. Paradoxically, while her life is now devoted to his recovery, her photography tends to capture the very opposite of that turmoil. It tends to be quiet and calm. “Someone once told me that my work was like a home cooked meal, and that really stuck with me,” says Meg with a smile.
Meg Loeks considers the editing process just as important as the actual shooting. She loves to bring an image to life and that’s what she aims for when editing. “I’m drawn to rich colors and moody light,” she observes. “The editing portion truly completes my images for me. I often know exactly what I want to do with an image in post processing before I ever hit the shutter button on my camera.”
What’s in Meg’s camera bag?
What equipment does Meg use to capture her masterful images of childhood and family? Her go-to camera is a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, and her favorite lenses are a Canon 35mm f/1.4L version II and a Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art. She mainly uses the 35mm when shooting indoors and the 85mm outdoors.
“I often shoot in low light indoors because of the way my house is set up and because I prefer it,” she says. “My 35mm has proven to be fast and sharp, especially in those situations, but the 85mm f/1.4 Sigma is my absolute favorite lens. I’m able to achieve beautiful compression with this moderate telephoto lens, which helps to separate my subjects from the background. It’s fast and incredibly sharp. I also love that I also don’t have to stand too far from my children as you do with some telephoto lenses.”
Meg Loeks is primarily a natural light photographer. Her main goals with lighting: to highlight her subject as much as possible while having the background and surroundings be secondary. She often prefers to shoot lifestyle and environmental portraits, so she tends to seek out or create ‘pockets of light’ to isolate the subject. Her favorite types of light: soft window light, ‘Dutch Masters’ light aka Rembrandt lighting, and Golden Hour backlight.
When she’s mentoring or counseling family photographers or up-and-coming pros in this highly competitive field, Meg Loeks offers the following sage advice: if you haven’t found your voice and personal style yet, remind yourself that it takes a while. Study the artists that you love. They can be painters, illustrators, film producers and of course photographers. Ask yourself what it is that you love about their work. Take time out of your day to push yourself to try new things. The world of photography is heavily saturated as we well know, and it’s hard not to compare your work to those around you. What matters most is whether you are proud of your work or not. “That last point may sound like a cliché” Meg admits, “but I think it holds some truth value.” As for her own style she says, with admirable concision and humility, “My images are typically rich in color and depth, contain warm tones, and often exude a quiet and calm mood.”
How does Meg see her career and her images evolving over the next few years? Her answer is telling. “My heart and passion lie with documenting my children and family,” she asserts. “And I don’t see that changing ever.” However she has always loved teaching, and over the next few years she hopes to rekindle her longtime interest in film. “I especially miss developing my prints and I hope to create and teach a new workshop,” she continues. Meg has a couple workshop ideas in mind and she’d love to develop and implement them over the next year or so. In addition she has a project lined up with Profoto that’s launching later this year, but the details are still under wraps. Finally, Meg is thinking about launching a photographic retreat, but it’s still in the planning stage.
We asked Meg whether she had any special opportunities or faced any particular challenges as a woman photographer, and her answers are forthright and revealing. “Personally I don’t feel I’ve faced any particular challenges as a woman photographer,” she observes, “but sometimes I’m not taken as seriously because my main subjects revolve around my family. However my children are my greatest inspiration. They are the reason I pick up my camera every single day. I realized long ago that if you’re not photographing something you absolutely love, the results will be mediocre at best. So I decided the best thing to do was to document the world around me, and my family’s daily life. That’s where I have always felt a pull. I want my children to look back at the images I created and see how I saw them. I want my viewers to feel as though they were with me during these moments, that they felt what I felt.”
Indeed, it is that passion, and its masterful execution, that makes Meg Loeks’s heartfelt images so unique and emotionally compelling.
