Fine Art Wedding Photography
As part of our personalized process, we don’t use an outside editing company or photo lab. We believe the best photos come from staying in house from start to finish, ensuring the emotion the photographer felt during the wedding gets translated through editing. This is just part of the process we use to create emotion you can feel- which is why you’ve never seen images like this before.
Due to this attention to detail and highly personalized experience, we are only able to accept 20 weddings a year.
As one of the most celebrated and published studios in the nation, we’re honored to start this journey with you.
Fine art wedding photography
As part of our personalized process, we don’t use an outside editing company or photo lab. We believe the best photos come from staying in house from start to finish, ensuring the emotion the photographer felt during the wedding gets translated through editing. This is just part of the process we use to create emotion you can feel- which is why you’ve never seen images like this before.
Due to this attention to detail and highly personalized experience, we are only able to accept 20 weddings a year.
As one of the most celebrated and published studios in the nation, we’re honored to start this journey with you.
Creating art from love

The Clane Gessel Studio in New York at the National Geographic Fine Art Gallery Soho
The team
Clane
Clane Gessel’s passion has always been in photography. Shooting fine art images right out of high school, his work was featured on the cover of National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. At the time he was flat broke and living out of his car, but he refused to let obstacles stand in the way of his passion. Deciding to go back to college, he worked for The Seattle Times in his early 20s, further sharpening his photographic eye. After he graduated from the University of Washington, Clane eagerly stepped out of The Times’ shadow in search of a spotlight in the world of weddings.
Clane is uniquely qualified to do this – he is the only wedding photographer on earth that’s been on the cover of National Geographic and in National Geographic fine art galleries. He understands what fine art is, and loves telling love stories through fine art photography. Using his unique photojournalistic style, he helps each couple open up in front of the camera so their personalities come through. He specializes in capturing the whole story- from wedding details and environment to the couple’s family and intimate moments. Clane’s mission is to give each couple fine art wedding photography that captures the essence of their day in one picture.
12 years later, industry leaders haven’t overlooked Clane’s efforts. His work is among the most iconic imagery in weddings – his work has been featured in nearly every bridal magazine. He was named top 5 wedding photographers in the nation, and one of the most published. His extensive knowledge of wedding photography has earned him appearances on TV and radio programs and is widely considered one of the best wedding photographers in the country. His favorite part of the wedding day is when the couple sees each other for the first time.
Stanley
Stanley can be described as an exuberant, creative, innovative photographer, with a heart for people. Stanley comes from Miami, Fl, where his main focus was to serve people in civil service with an emphasis in law enforcement. Stanley’s dream was to become a US Marshal and later join the northeast Fugitive Task Force. After graduating, he began working for his local police department for 4+ years, all the while studying photography in his free time. He has since brought together his passion for serving people and love for photography by moving into weddings.
Stanley has worked with a variety of couples, local music artists, and entrepreneurs. He excels at telling a story through his photography, and is dedicated to sharing and developing photography techniques, and blogs consistently to help others understand the importance of these techniques in application.
From after meeting his wife in 2012, Stanley’s passion and respect for marriage extend from his camera to his family. His inspiration for photography comes from the love of his wife and the world around him. He currently resides in New York, and looks to capture the endless love and personalities the city holds. In his free time, Stanley would be hanging out with his best friend (his wife), trying new restaurants and cheesecake spots throughout the city.
Monali
Monali is an uber-talented photographer and artist. On top of being a physician, Monali enjoys stand-up comedy and spending time with her husband. Monali is an accomplished artist and photographer, we’re honored to have her on the team. Clane heavily recruited Monali for her talent and eye, she’s adept at getting all the detail shots at each wedding, and makes sure nothing is missed. She’s shot a number of weddings with Clane and team around the world, and her portfolio stands apart.
Sue
Sue was juggling a busy life as a medical researcher and freelance violinist in NYC when she decided to buy a camera that was “better than a cell phone”. Since then, she has jumped headfirst into photography with no regrets.
Born in China and raised in New Haven, CT, Sue graduated from Duke University in Biology with distinction and Chemistry and Music performance minors. She has a lifelong goal of helping others and has worked in the past decade as an EMT at Yale-New Haven Hospital and research coordinator in transplant medicine at Columbia University in NYC. It was through photography that she realized she could marry both her passion for helping others and for artistic expression.
Always exploring the technical aspects of photography, Sue uses her science background in the developing and printing her own film photography. Her musical background gives her a unique perspective in the art of timing for perfect moments. Her specialty is candid portraiture and photojournalism-style scenes. And she loves stories, especially love stories.
Sue travels often with her husband, a touring violinist. In her free time, she enjoys playing chamber music, board games with friends, and baking pies.
Angela
Angela Strauman is ecstatic to join Clane’s team! Born and raised in Minnesota she came to New York in 2015 ago for school, and will soon graduate with a BFA in musical theatre from CAP21/Molloy College. As much as Angela loves performing, she is excited to put some of her other gifts to use; ie creating spreadsheets. This skill is something not many people think of, but Martha Stuart better watch out, because Angela creates some of the best spreadsheets in all of the world. (Actually, though, they are really pretty great!). Along with her organization skills, she helps run the back end of the Studio, organizing, tagging and culling photos – she is the only non-photographer on the team. Angela enjoys making a difference in people’s lives and feels Clane’s work does exactly that. It’s exciting when work/life goals line up with each other and Angela could not be more excited to join Clane and his fantastic team.
Chloe
Chloe moved to New York from Georgia to look persue a career in acting. After graduating from Marymount Manhattan College in 2018, she worked professionally as a performer and became involved in teaching and coaching vocal students. Chloe first picked up a camera in hopes of sharing her student’s progress with the world, and soon found a talent in telling stories.
Chloe has spent time as a model and photographer, so she’s familiar with the nuances of posing and lighting. She helps couples feel comfortable in front of the camera, so she can capture their memories as they unfold. Her style is more photojournalistic, She gave up a modeling career to tell couple’s stories behind the camera. Chloe also helps run the office, set up meetings, and respond to emails. She enjoys helping couples with more than just photography, and can help each couple find the right planner, venue, music, and other vendors.
Chloe has shot weddings with the Studio all over the country and loves destination weddings. Her favorite part of the wedding day are the vows (she cries every time).
“I hope this does not sound generic but Clane is the single most AWESOME photographer if not in this country, in the Pacific Northwest. I have been to and seen multitudes of wedding photos in my years, and Clane by far exceeded the high standard I expected of him. I can honestly say that the best decision I made regarding my wedding, with the exception of the man I choose to marry of course, was choosing to go w/Clane for our photography needs. Everyone who sees my photos comments on how great the photography turned out, and I always make sure to pass along his info so they can try to slot him in for their big day. I absolutely LOVE Clane, I have only rave reviews about him and his work. He is so creative and shot better photos than I even imagined possible. Go with Clane, I am not kidding, you will not be disappointed!”
-Cara and Tyler
“Clane was the photographer for my wedding this past June and he was the absolute best. He captured the day perfectly and the photos are truly beautiful. So much so that two bridal magazines asked to publish them for their real wedding feature. This was such a wonderful compliment and unexpected bonus. It is also the perfect testament to two of my favorite things about Clane’s work. 1) His skill and ability to make a couple feel comfortable and appear unposed before the camera. 2) His unquestionable mastery at transforming scenery and detail into distinctive and artistic imagery. In addition to Clane’s unmatched expertise, I would be remised if I didn’t also comment on Clane, the person. I have found him to be genuine, passionate and practically luminescent when he talks about his work and couples. Clane receives my highest recommendation. I couldn’t be happier with our wedding photos or imagine another photographer capturing the day more perfectly. And yah, did I mention our wedding photos are going to be published in a magazine?”
–Sacha and Doug
”Clane was fantastic. I must admit, at first I was skeptical. It seemed like a lot of money to spend on a photographer. Here’s the deal though, these are some of the best wedding pictures you will ever see. He works very hard to figure out what you want, but also to figure out who you and your guests are. He then tries to bring the best out of everyone. Which in the case of some of my guests meant practically forcing a smile. Some guests didn’t quite appreciate this, but, he got excellent pictures out of people who you normally couldn’t pay to smile. For the most part people got a kick out of him and thought he was awesome.
Clane has multiple packages available but will work with you if you ask real nice. He almost immediately had a lot of edited photos available online for us and within a few weeks we got a DVD with a copy of all of the photos. Clane did an engagement session with us, attended the rehearsal, the wedding and even went out with us around Seattle after the wedding and took photos.
Beyond being an excellent photographer, Clane is just an all around awesome guy that you want to hang out with afterward and have beer or a cup of coffee. Clane is more than a photographer. He is dead set determined to do whatever it takes to get photos that you are going to love, frame and share with everybody. He’s not afraid to do just about whatever it takes to make it happen. We gave him pretty much carte blanch permission to do this. He’ll be less tenacious if you like, but why would you. This is your wedding after all!!
Clane is totally worth it! Hire him and you won’t regret it.”
-Ian and Sam
“We can honestly say we could not have asked for a better photographer. From day one Clane went above and beyond to make sure we were happy and comfortable with the camera in our face. We have both been photographed before for various reasons and neither of us have ever been comfortable with it. We were blown out of the water by Clane’s ability to break the ice and have a great time while still creating PHENOMINAL photographs. He not only made us happy on our wedding day and the days leading up to it, but he also hit it off with our bridal party, guests and even other vendors. We have received so many complements on his talent and personality since the wedding day its amazing. I wouldnt hesitate to recommend him to anyone, in fact we have a few friends who are planning to use him for their weddings some of which aren’t even engaged yet- they said they would save his information until the time comes because they wouldn’t want to use anyone else. That in itself is a huge complement! I can go on and on about how wonderful he was and how amazing the final product was for hours and none of us have time for that so ill end it by saying you don’t need to look any further for a photographer for your event- He was everything we could have wanted plus so much more!”
-Jeannette and Cody