Mortensen Portrait Design

For more than 35 years, the professional photographers at Mortensen Portrait Design have framed personal moments with timeless elegance. In the interest of honoring each client's unique aesthetic, the staff engages subjects during every step of the portrait process. Their catalogue of studio backgrounds and sets accommodates high-school seniors, family groups, children, and pets, whose images are always given the classical treatment: technicians bond the images individually to canvas or print them with a textured finish, then apply a coat of clear glaze. The resulting product befits most any mantelpiece perch or sophisticated vehicle, where it can function as a fancy upgrade from a rearview mirror.

The studio's child-friendly services benefit its customers and the community as a whole. Fairy portraits—shot in an onsite garden to reduce run-ins with feral toadstools—bestow youngsters with shimmery wings for a charming keepsake. Additionally, during their annual Cute Kids Portrait Contest, more than $10,000 in session payments, orders, and votes go to the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer Fund.