Welcome to Beyond the Lens, our spotlight series featuring award-winning photographers who have elevated their craft by embracing professional printing. These artists go beyond capturing moments- they bring their visions to life through in-house printing, turning creative control into business growth and artistic freedom!

Sometimes the most dramatic photographs can be made in the blink of an eye. When North Carolina portrait, landscape and architectural photographer Gordon Kreplin toured a local Parade of Homes event, he set up a few lights and took one shot while the hallway was clear. That one shot, named “Upstairs Downstairs,” won Kreplin the 2015 Virginia Professional Photographers Association‘s print competition. “I probably shot 15 houses that day, and this was the last one,” Kreplin says. “I loved the composition and entry into the rooms as well as the architectural lines.” To evolve the photo from a straight-forward architectural shot to something a bit more moody, he created a faux high-dynamic range (HDR) in Photoshop. He printed the image on Sunset Fibre Elite, available from LexJet, and mounted it on a 16-x-20-inch black gator board. “I don’t typically finish the print at all by putting a lacquer on it,” he says. “It can make it look milky in the light and it dulls the blacks.” A concert...