And the Guild of Professional Photographers of the Delaware Valley’s “Photographer of the Year” is…Bucks County’s own Denise Kline!
Denise is a professional photographer based out of Rushland, PA. Her studio features a variety of her works and a large collection of her awards and recognitions.
In 2012 alone, the GPPDV named her works Best in Show, Best Portrait of a Group, Best Portrait of a Man, Best Portrait of a Child, Judges’ Choice Award, and all of these honors got her a place in the 480 Club for six photos scoring 80 or higher.
Denise has a degree in Fine Art and Photography from Syracuse University. She started her career by working for other photo studios and freelancing, moving on to incorporate her own business 18 years ago.
Her fine arts background has been a part of her work, as she has often added paintings to backgrounds, created structures to be used in her photos, and directed subjects as if she were filming a movie. She has adapted through photography’s conversion from film to digital, and continues to grow.
Denise is now getting into videos and website work. She enjoys creating eye-catching sites for creative professionals, realtors, and businesses that want something unique with a strong visual aspect. “Everything’s Internet these days,” she says.
One thing that makes Denise’s website work so special is the creative composite she makes for the client at the end of the job. It is a large print that digitally combines photos done for the website into an art piece. One of her recent award-winning photos is entitled “Tending Tears.”
It is a portrait of George Lindsey, a Doylestown resident recently retired from the US Army who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He came to Denise for a portrait in uniform. During the session, she realized that he needed to focus on something, a prop of some sort.
He asked for a Bible, and she had one from her childhood in the studio. While looking at the Bible, George got choked up and began to cry.
“It was a moment,” Denise notes.
She feels that her strength as a photographer is that people feel very relaxed around her, which enables her to get true representations of her subjects.
“It’s people’s inner essence that I try to capture.”
PHOTO CAP: Denise Kline holds her GPPDV Photographer of the Year award with her many other awards in the background, and the photo of George Lindsey, “Tending Tears.”
